My parents sacrificed much to send my sister and I to a private Catholic girls’ school when we were growing up.  This is what it looks like.  In the intervening years, it has changed a lot – no more cloistered nuns, it’s coed, and it has become a lot more exclusive than it was back 50 something years ago.

The school my sister and I attended from kindergarten through 10th Grade.

Our teachers were strict and serious about teaching. We diagrammed sentences, had spelling tests all the time (my downfall), and we were taught Latin from 7th Grade on.

The rules of Grammar were drilled into our pretty little heads every single day.  Papers in every subject were graded as much on proper grammar, punctuation, penmanship, and spelling as on content.

As a result, when I read blog posts, facebook updates, even Tweets, I get a little sick to my stomach because of the poor grammar and usage that is everywhere!

My God, Mother Earhart would have a fit over the misuse of Less and Fewer alone!

And it’s not just your every day person who makes these errors.  Writers, good writers, don’t seem to understand proper grammar.

It grates (not greats) on my nerves.

(And then there was penmanship.  Boy, did I suck at penmanship. Someone got the great idea that we should all learn Chancery Script rather than the more common Palmer Method of hand writing. That is another post.)