Fortune Cookie Friday: Grammar, It’s a Good Thing
Today’s fortune caught me by surprise, and was somewhat ironic.
I can’t wait to meet this beautiful, smart, and loving person. How will I know them when I see them? What impact will that make in my life? Well, as far as I’m concerned, every person I meet is beautiful, smart, and loving. Each time I meet someone new, it reminds me how varied our society is.
We are all brothers and sisters of the human race, and we each have a part in God’s great story of life. Unfortunately, I was more interested in the mistake in the fortune, than the meaning. Can you spot an error?
Today is National Grammar Day. What are the odds that the fortune I have to post, on this particular day, would have a typo? Please don’t busy yourself with any complicated statistical mathematics. The question was rhetorical.
Every day is Grammar Day for me. I spend a great deal of time editing my writing for my books and blogs. I corrected a bunch of mistakes in this post alone, before publishing it. Editing is important in my career. Sloppy grammar can prevent my work being published. It can also give my readers the wrong impression.
If you didn’t see the typo in our fortune, the word “you” should be “your.” It is only a fortune cookie, but it just goes to show you that a little editing could have prevented this. I will commend them on the proper punctuation. I am a big advocate for the Oxford comma.
The Oxford comma is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and, or, or nor) in a series of three or more terms. Many learn to use it, while others don’t. I believe the Oxford comma aids in clarity. For example:
Proper punctuation gives clarity to the situation. It also offers appropriate pauses in speech. It gives the reader time to digest what you wrote. Some joke that it also saves lives. You may have seen the comparison of these two sentences before:
“Let’s eat grandma.” versus “Let’s eat, grandma.”
They have completely different meanings. I don’t want my readers to think I’m into cannibalism, just because I was too lazy to check my punctuation.
Grammatical errors happen, but we shouldn’t let our impatience cause us to overlook them. Most of the mistakes we make are due to rushing through our work or lives. We need to slow down and look at what we are doing, and what is happening around us.
If you don’t slow down, you might be misunderstood, or give the wrong impression. You also might not recognize the beautiful, smart, and loving people in you you’re your life.
