Tuesday, September 23, 2014

I SERVED MY SUBJECTS WELL AND VARILY YESTERMORROW

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,

First, I must ask: Did I tell you that my neighborhood restaurant opened back up? If I told you, then I'm sorry for repeating the news. If I didn't tell you, then I'm sorry I left you out.

When last we stood at the door of the neighborhood restaurant, the door was closed, it was dark inside, and a little piece of me died. No sign announced hours or a reopening. I went to a place up the street that called itself a grill. The food was tasteless. The ambiance was yucky. Service: mediocre.

The grill had been open a few weeks. It went out of business about a week after I visited (no relation). The great news is that I drove past my neighborhood restaurant the next week, and they were open. I made a quick turn into a parking place and dashed inside for a nice little meal. They are now open from seven a.m. until three p.m., every day. No more evening hours.

I don't care as long as they are there.

Yesterday I was in my restaurant, eating my scrambled eggs, when I heard the voice of a young person behind me. She said, I got points taken off my essay because I used snuck as the past tense of sneak. The teacher said it was sneaked.

She had me at "essay."

I turned around and stared into her eyes so she would know how important I am. Yes? she asked, with a curtsy and a faretheewell.

I explained all my blah blah yada yada yada about language changes, and it's hard on grammarians, especially moi  because I'm the Queen. I told her that sneaked is the past tense of sneak, but snuck is becoming acceptable.

She said that her teacher had offered her partial credit if she could prove that snuck can be used as the past tense of sneak. She looked in a dictionary, showed it to her teacher, and received her credit. I felt pretty surprised that the teacher didn't know that snuck is accepted. It may not be what some of us like, but it's okay to use it. I won't hear it and shout, Off with their heads!

So that's how I served my subjects yesterday, and I am here for you at all times. Your Queen abides.

Cartoons courtesy of loyal subject The Queen of fishduckery:




Infinities of love,

Janie Junebug




The Dude: Yeah, well. The Dude abides.
The Stranger: The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the finals.

I've gotten behinders on reading your bloggs. Please for give Yer Queen. I shall catch up as kwickly as is humanly, or dogly, possible. I say dogly because sometimes Franklin comments on your blogs in my place. That dog loves the blogosphere.


Oh, that reminds me that Favorite Young Man and I went to get some fabric last night and we saw a woman walking a beautiful rough collie. We admired the collie, and I said, I love collies. Verily and thus I says unto youse guys.

45 comments:

  1. Homeschooling has forced me to be knowledgeable on the subject of grammar and spelling. I'm not saying I don't totally stink at it, but I try. It makes me miss nursing - nurses have cornered the market on all abbreviations. I reckon 70% of what I wrote on a daily basis was abbreviated.

    Love and jealousy that you have a neighborhood restaurant.
    Cherdo

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    1. I have a neighborhood bakery, too, and pretty soon a second bakery will open. The bad part is that most of the new businesses only last a couple of months. If I, your Queen, can ever be of assistance to you (PRN), then verily I say unto you, just ask me what ya need to know, tid.

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  2. Based on the adorable illustrations, I am glad I am not an english teacher.

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    1. I wish I could be an English teacher. I tried, but the students wanted to beat me up, and they were bigger than me.

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  3. Wait a second, you're my queen now? Was there a coup? I hope it was bloodless. God save the queen.

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    1. I was Your Queen before you ever met me. I am eternal. And infertile.

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  4. My pet peeve is the word "realtor". I constantly hear it pronounced "relitor", and it is all I can do to not correct them. Sigh

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    1. Correct away. Please correct. Then I don't have to be the mean Queen.

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  5. Golllaaayyy, you talk real purty!
    Are you one of them there city slickers
    fulla book learnin' and such?

    Hello, Janie Junebug! I'd like to know why you and Cherdo were both awake in the middle of the night writing comments on each other's blogs. Is it a conspiracy? Do the two of you stay up late plotting against me? Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers...

    Are you plagued with insomnia because you are upset with me for constantly urging Cherdo to remove your comments from her blog?

    Have you and she formed a club called Sleepless over Shady?

    I hope that eatery stays in business and continues to offer the good food, good value and good service you have come to expect. We had a favorite Chinese restaurant near us that went out of business and then reopened under new ownership. We tried it once and it was terrible.

    I would LOVE to have Franklin leave comments on my blog. Please tell him he's always welcome at SDMM and that a jerky treat awaits him with every visit.

    Happy Tuesday, dear friend Janie!

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    1. You know who ate the strawberries, and I am relieving you of your command. While combing my hair now, and wondering if I should wear underwear now, I say a little prayer for Cherdo. Together, together, she'll stay in my heart and I'll love Cherdo. Together, together, that's how it must be, I don't wear panties. I say a little prayer for those who do. I'm pleased to report that the restaurant is super busy now. I think we have a breakfast and lunch neighborhood. For supper, everyone goes to the biker bar. It's not far, and I say a little prayer for Cherdo.

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  6. I read my favorite bloggers and smile at sowing clothes and they're other mistakes. I love them all and now I don't care. A prerogative of an old English teacher, you see.

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    1. I don't get a bee in my bonnet over most of the errors on blogs. I've been known to make a few mistakes meself. When it comes to formal writing, however, I like to see words spelled correctly.

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  7. Hi Janie - English is an interesting language .. and I'd struggle with teaching it - but I do like the word 'snuck' - it sounds slangy .. but is effective in its use ...

    Still glad the restaurant has opened up again ... hope it lasts this time .. cheers Hilary

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    1. I think it will last. I've noticed that at least one of the owners is spending a lot more time there. He brought me my meal one day. He snuck right over to me and set it down.

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  8. Junie, thank you for all of the good wishes and kind thoughts you have given me the past few weeks. Bless you!

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  9. I thunk sneaked sounded wrong.

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    1. I thunk snuck is kinda weird, but I'm old school.

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  10. I actually was writing yesterday about someone who had been "hanged." In my research, I stumbled upon an article calling it "hung" and I looked it up. The two words are interchangeable, but when the hanging is an execution, "hanged" is the preferred use, I learned. So the article was wrong. Ha!

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    1. That's another example of changing language. Hung is becoming acceptable. As a grammarian, I don't like it, but if he's well hung, then I won't complain.

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  11. Question for the grammar queen: Sometimes people place an "S" at the end of "toward" making it "towards" and sometimes they don't. Someone once said to me that an "s" on the end is British and not generally used in America. Are they right?

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  12. Dear Janie, I so enjoyed the cartoon about PGSD! Verily, it runs trippingly off the tongue! Peace.

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    1. Peace porridge hot. Peace porridge cold. Peace porridge in the pot, and don't you give it to me when it's nine days old.

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    2. Forsooth, I won't!!!!! Peace porridge hot!

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  13. Thank you for the plug, Your Majesty!!

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  14. I still don't like "snuck." (And neither does the WV.)

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  15. I'm so glad I have "you editors" type to fall back on. Too many rules to learn when all I want to do is to read and write . . . and nap. So consider me a loyal follower, my Queen. ;)

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  16. Just please don't tell me that "drug" will ever be accepted as the past tense of "drag." I will hitherto jump off a cliff. If sneak can be snuck, then feak would be f----....!!!!

    -andi

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    1. I don't like drug, but it see it and hear it a lot. What in heaven's name does feak mean? You are a word maker-upper.

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    2. I totally made that up...getting the link from sneak to snuck....feak would be fu----...

      Never mind.

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  17. Snuck is in my 1981 Webster's Third International Dictionary as an acceptable dialect version. I am having problems with many verbs these days, that I wonder how I learned or learnt them. I know I always would have said snuck and learnt and hung and so on. I learnt English, British version, beginning in 1950 as a second language in Sweden. Can you shed any light on this? I am getting more and more confused about what to use for many of these verbs. I have actually changed to learned, hanged, and so on. But there are others. I do take my English very seriously. Reading Middlemarch right now and wish we would still speak like that.....

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    1. I have two answers for you, Ingrid, and I don't know if they'll be of any help. First, British English and American English are quite different. Second, spoken words are quite often more casual than written words. Someone might say "learnt," but in writing, you would want "learned." I've never read Middlemarch, but I'll get to it one of these days. I read Adam Bede by George Eliot. She was a great writer, but it's Jane Austen I really adore.

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  18. Our favorite local Italian eatery was bought by someone else. We ate there once. I think someone else will buy the place soon. I hope so. The current place is bad. So I know how happy you are to have your restaurant back.

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    1. My restaurant is like Cheers without the beer. Everybody knows me, and they know what I want to eat. They know Willy Dunne Wooters, too, and they always ask about him.

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  19. Hooray for your restaurant! Oh, the great stories we're going to get to hear from there. :)

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    1. Probably not any great stories. I sit. I read. I eat. I pay and come home.

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  20. I'm glad your neighborhood haunt is up and running, even if it is only for a few hours a day!! Those girls must have been a bit awed to have run into the Queen--live and in person! I hope they remember it fondly and tell their children one day. *she bows* ;)

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    1. They probably walked out and said, What a crazy old lady!

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  21. Good thing the girl knew how to use a dictionary because so many young people nowadays don't.

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    1. They probably don't know how to use a dictionary because they don't use them in school. They're told to use "creative spelling." God forbid that they should be slowed down by learning to spell a word correctly.

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