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Sister, Sister*

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March 29, 2018
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If you’re a longtime reader, you might remember Jess talking about her two younger sisters, and if you’re new here—awesome! I am, too.

I’m Kate, the youngest of Jess’s two sisters and the newest member of the Grammatical Art team. I have another sure-to-be adorable nephew on the way, so I’ll be helping out while Jess gets ready for baby no. 2 and filling in for her while she’s away on maternity leave.

I spent my time in undergrad as a copy editor then copy chief for the campus newspaper, taking as many writing courses as I could. But it only took one semester without a single science class for me to realize that I missed it, so I joined a lab and majored in biology. (I spent the rest of my free time in Harry Potter club. Yes, an actual, official club for everything and anything Harry Potter related. Living the dream, guys.)

Four years of splitting your time between hard science and creative writing means you get a lot of “If you like writing, why aren’t you an English major?” and “If you’re a biology major, why are you taking writing classes?” As if it only makes sense to do one or the other; as if the two are so unrelated they might as well exist in different dimensions.

My question was always: Why choose? If I love both, why not do both?

So when Jess and Natalie approached me about getting on board, it seemed like a no-brainer. Working with people who love all things nerdy? Who geek out about grammar and science in equal measure? Count me in.

Needless to say, I can’t wait to work with you all over the next few months, to talk books, talk science, and help keep you in all things grammar!

 

*Yes, this is in fact a shameless reference to the classic 90s sitcom starring Tia and Tamera Mowry.

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The Liberal Arts Years: Have You Met Jess?

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August 25, 2017
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Have you met Jess? If you haven’t, you should. Let me tell you about how I met Jess, because it’s actually an important part of why Grammatical Art is what it is today.

Jess and I met back in 2003 when we were undergraduates together at small liberal arts college in Ohio. I am pretty sure we met in band—I know, it’s hard to believe that we were also band nerds. I couldn’t tell you about our first interaction because I am notoriously bad at remembering details like that, but this is how a chemist and a librarian came to run your favorite nerdy business.

While it seems odd to have studied chemistry and physics at a liberal arts college, I was very fortunate to have done so. I was forced to read, write, and to present topics in and outside of my core disciplines. I had to do more than balance chemical equations and determine the probability of finding an electron in a p orbital; I had to step way outside of my comfort zone by taking humanities courses. Here, I got to meet people like Jess who could help me write my lab reports in ways that non-scientists could actually understand them. I not only learned about physical sciences, but I learned about other subject fields I wouldn’t have otherwise studied and interacted with people I wouldn’t have normally. I think this is where I finally discovered my love of language. This love would eventually help me to become who I am today and would lead me to running the business that I do.

I was a bench chemist who was looking for a creative outlet and found it in Grammatical Art. I started by creating a few designs out of grammar pet peeves and, unexpectedly, people started buying them. Now I am here, sitting in my home office, surrounded by silk screens and blank shirts, telling all of you how this small grammatical empire came to be.

I had no idea what I was going to be when I grew up, but I surely wouldn’t have told you I was going to be a screen printing chemist mom. This isn’t the path I would’ve necessarily chosen for myself in elementary school, or any other grade for that matter, but I am very fortunate to have my successful career and business, and I do believe it is mostly due to my liberal arts education. I was able to grow into things there I couldn’t have imagined, and formed friendships with super cool people I wouldn’t have ordinarily met.

Here Jess and I are, after 14 years of friendship and growth, working on this nerdy business, putting our liberal arts degrees to work in ways we never would have thought possible.

While some people may be confused by my BA in chemistry, I am proud of it. Had I not done it in this way, I never would have met Jess and Grammatical Art may have never been.

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An Analysis of Acronyms

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August 2, 2017
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Let’s talk about acronyms. We all use them. But what makes them powerful mainstays of language? Here’s my take:

  1. Well, they’re a shortcut. Duh. Less writing. Less typing. Efficiency. Who really wants to type out How I Met Your Mother when you can just say HIMYM? It’s practically in our DNA to take a shortcut. As every grade school kids knows, no one bothers with the United States of America. USA! USA! USA!
  2. They make texting a lot easier given that you’re relying on opposable thumbs for communication. LOL and BRB are way easier to pound out than the whole phrase written out. Amiright?
  3. Because every industry has a million agencies, national organizations, chapters, and set of guidelines, and acronyms streamline the naming of things. I’m a librarian. I get it. We love our inside lingo. We especially love our organizational acronyms.
  4. They give us a sense of being in the know. LOL has become the joke of the acronym world because 1) no, you’re not really laughing out loud when you use it, and 2) your grandma knows what it means. If you don’t watch Game of Thrones, then you have no idea what GoT means. If you don’t spend a bunch of time online, then FWIW and FTW and NSFW have no meaning. If you’re not a librarian, you don’t understand what AASL is. How many times have you seen or heard an acronym and been too afraid to ask what it actually means because everyone else already seems to know it? Yes, I’m talking to you, person who secretly googles acronyms. It also happens that when someone uses an acronym and then proceeds to explain it, you get annoyed if you already know it. Acronyms are insider codes, and we all want to be on the inside.

It’s interesting to me how much grammar, spelling, and punctuation have been used to judge someone. People who care a lot about using proper grammar are dubbed nerds, snobs, elitist. People who are more colloquial and perhaps less obsessive are considered ignorant, uneducated, careless even. Acronyms, grammar, and spelling all have the potential to exclude. Throughout history, groups of people have been prevented from learning how to read and write. This is precisely because people who have knowledge can use it to oppress those who don’t have it. There is power in knowing.

This is a lot to extract from an analysis of acronyms, but IMO this is part of the fascination with and complication of grammar and language. What are your thoughts?

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Recapping the 2017 Phoenix Comicon

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June 13, 2017
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I’ve read about Cons. I’ve talked to people about their experiences at a Con. I’d never been to a Comicon. Boy, oh boy. Phoenix Comicon did not disappoint.

Grammatical Art has been making appearances at various Cons on the west coast for several years now, but this was my first time attending. As a librarian, I’d attended many large-scale conventions, so I was at least familiar with a crowded convention center, panels, vendor halls, and hustle and bustle. I do have to admit, nothing compares to the costumes at a Con, though!

This year’s Phoenix Comicon wasn’t without it’s drama (I’m looking at you bag full of guns and 2 hour security lines), but it was well worth wading through all of the initial upheaval to get in and explore. The vendor hall was full of everything from books and comic books, to superhero garb, to steampunk jewelry, to awesome grammar- and science-inspired gear and prints. Wink wink. I was so excited by all the awesome costumes and our busy booth that I didn’t even have time to think about all of the celebrities doing signings and photos in the same building!

Natalie & Jess at the Grammatical Art booth!

The absolute best part had to be meeting everyone who stopped by the Grammatical Art booth. Grammar enthusiasts, science lovers, and those with an artist’s eye all stopped by to share a laugh, an eye roll, or to debate the finer points of the Oxford comma (as if there’s even a debate!). It was a joy and pleasure to meet all of you! Natalie does beautiful work, and I loved having an opportunity to appreciate it with you.

Here’s to the next Con!

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A Time and a Place for Everything, Even Incorrect Grammar

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May 17, 2017
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I used to think Siri on my iPhone was sort of lame. I would occasionally ask her about the weather or to set a timer for me, but she didn’t really change my life. I was young; I slept through the night; I didn’t have a kid.

But now, I have a kid, which means I have only 2 hands and a thousand things to be holding, wiping, sorting, carrying, managing, collecting, and hugging. Siri has become invaluable to me. I text people while I’m buckling my son in his car seat! I ask her to look up how many tablespoons are in a cup while I’m rinsing a can of beans and holding my toddler. I talk to Siri all day long, and with some slight misunderstandings, she’s generally very helpful.

As if using Siri isn’t already the ultimate lazy/multitasking tool, I’ve found myself getting even lazier. I don’t really always double check the texts I ask her to send for their grammar and spelling. When I’m not using Siri, but I am using voice-to-text, I check those even less often. At least Siri will read my text back to me and can edit it without my having to lift a finger. Bottom line: the punctuation is always atrocious.

I’ve started to wonder if all this Siri, Google, voice-to-text stuff is going to permanently affect what is acceptable grammar and punctuation in our written society. Personally, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading texts that come to me from people using those features–lots of autocorrect, incorrect punctuation. It makes it a little harder to understand, but it’s not a full on communication breakdown by any means.

And then I wonder, honestly, who cares? Before you gasp and clutch your pearls, hear me out. I love grammar. I work for grammar. I believe that proper grammar and punctuation are very, very important. But part of what I love about language is that it is constantly evolving. We’re constantly inventing things that need names, creating new words out of conversations. We’re an ever-evolving species and our language reflects that. So, I’m not going to sweat the small stuff in a text message. It’s a matter of conversation and convenience. I wouldn’t by lazy about it in the workplace, and certainly not in a space like this blog. It’s the same way that I don’t mind a swear word or forty among friends, but wouldn’t do it while I’m giving a press conference live on TV. You see where I’m going with this? There’s a time and place for everything. Even though my heart will always fully belong to proper punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

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Totes Magotes

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October 11, 2016
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I’m a bit of a bag lady. By my front door as I type this, there is a hook that has about 15 bags hanging from it. And these are just my reusable bags that I take to the grocery store. I have fancy bags (like my gorgeous Kate Spade beauties), diaper bags (yes, plural), backpacks, duffel bags, suitcases, messenger bags, computer bags, and loads of purses and clutches. I can’t get enough. And though I do give away a bagful (see what I did there?) to Goodwill every spring, I still feel like each bag serves its purpose.

And yet, while I dance around and make it rain with all of my bags, there are still some I do NOT own.

Like one with my name on it:

personalized tote5

Or one with a swear word (!):

fck-tote

Or the most coveted of all, one just for my library books:

library tote4

What kind of a librarian doesn’t have a tote bag in her collection that features the word “library” and is intended for carrying books? One who’s about to get out her credit card and purchase one stat, that’s who.

So, I encourage you to take a long, hard look at your collection of tote bags and purses and fill in what’s missing with one of these (or one of our other) awesome bags.

And since this is a grammar blog, let’s talk about totes magotes. Not “totes my goats” as some may confuse it, “totes magotes” is attributed to the 2009 bromance I Love You, Man, although there is some debate about whether or not it’s been around for much longer. I’m sure you all know what it means, but basically it’s a phrase that emphasizes the word “totally.” You may also hear “totally magotally.” But you probably won’t hear it anymore because no one has said “totes magotes” except for me since 2010.

Go forth and collect your tote bags!

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Grammar for All

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October 4, 2016
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It has become a (sad) game to find bad grammar out in the world. Items found can be as innocuous as a sign on a bathroom door to a piece of art that you are meant to hang in your kitchen that says, “Mom’s are the best chefs.”

Nope.

Of course, it’s all over social media, blogs, websites, The Interwebs. But that doesn’t stop me from smiling a little when I see something like this:

tricker treating

Ah yes, the timeless tradition of “tricker treating.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about grammar and how the ways we use it reflect back on us. In one of my Facebook groups, someone posted a question about hiring a photographer who had used poor grammar in a message exchange. My first reaction was I absolutely would not hire someone who has poor grammar. When I was planning my wedding, I dismissed vendors who had websites or advertisements riddled with grammatical errors.

But this post gave me pause. Grammar is complex. Some schools teach it thoroughly, intensely. Some don’t. Some people have a mind for all of the rules (many of which confuse and evade me). Some don’t. The mode of communication matters. Is it bad grammar on a website or is it bad grammar in a casual text message?

What fascinates me is that everyone has a relationship with grammar, whether they want to or not. We all write, even if it’s only in text messages and on social media. Some people don’t have a clue that what they’re written is at all grammatically incorrect. And does it really matter if it is so long as it’s understood? If I moved to Spain and attempted to speak in Spanish and misspoke here or there or with my thick American accent, would anyone criticize me so long as I could be understood? Probably not. Grammar is a language that belongs to all of us. Maybe common grammatical errors are sort of like written slang. It’s an evolution.

And while some grammatical errors make me shudder (the abuse of the apostrophe chief among them), I totally know what tricker treat is. I might be committing grammatical suicide, but is it a big deal if it’s spelled that way on Facebook?

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Hey Biatches, the OED Added New Words

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September 14, 2016
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OMG, y’all. The Oxford English Dictionary added new words. More than 1,000 entries have been updated and some 1,200 words or meanings added, according to an article on the updates by NPR. The editors of the OED typically wait years before they ultimately decide what words and meanings to add, making the “newness” of some of these words sort of silly. Once we start writing down and spelling out words that may only have been spoken or used jokingly, the editors start to take notice. The process of legitimizing and recording a word begins.

Some of the best additions for this go-around include:

  • cheese eater (n.): a person who eats cheese; a person who appreciates or routinely consumes cheese
  • ‘Merica (n.): America. Note: Originally and chiefly in representations of nonstandard speech. Now frequently also in ironic or self-conscious use, emphasizing emblematic or stereotypical qualities of American traditions, institutions and national ideals.
  • moobs (n.): unusually prominent breasts on a man, typically as a result of excess pectoral fat.
  • uptalk (n.): a manner of speaking in which declarative sentences are uttered with rising intonation at the end, a type of intonation more typically associated with questions.
  • YOLO (int.): “You only live once”; used to express the view that one should make the most of the present moment without worrying about the future (often as a rationale for impulsive or reckless behavior).

YOLO cracks me up in particular because it’s grammatically incorrect to say “you only live once” (it should really be “you live only once,” so YLOO). But hey, so goes the evolution of language.

There are also some racy, NSFW ones like biatch and jagoff. I might be most proud to see jagoff in the OED as a Pittsburgher (it’s a classic work of Pittsburghese). I’ll let you use your imagination on the actual definition or look that one up yourself. 😉

What’s coolest about all of this to me is that it demonstrates how fluid and flexible language is, which is one of my favorite things about it. We are, all of us, allowed to own it, bend it, tweak it, use it how we need to. There is certainly a difference between a creative evolution of a word and the bastardization of a word, to be clear. And I know there are purists among us, but I am a huge fan of this malleability. I once had a professor spend an entire class lamenting the misuse of impact. What was once a noun has now also become a verb, likely because people wanted to avoid misusing affect/effect. I for one say, “So what? Who cares?” Documentation adds validity, so now that it’s in the OED, go ahead, use it. YOLO, after all.

 

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When Bad Grammar Happens to Good (Grammar) People

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September 4, 2016
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I proofread text messages. Most of the time. I absolutely proofread emails. Big, heavy, important emails I proofread by reading them out loud just as I was taught to do in my college writing class. Sometimes, if they’re really important, I have someone else proofread them. This is how obsessed neurotic careful I am about my grammar.

It’s always been important to me to be sure I’m communicating as clearly as possible. There’s nothing more confusing or frustrating than muddling through someone’s ill-written, typo-ridden email, text message, Facebook post.

But, hey, everyone’s busy. Sometimes, you’re jotting off a text quickly and autocorrect gets the better of you. You’re typing a response to a simple email and there are more than one or two typos. Stuff happens!

But then there’s the time that you post something for all to see on a blog, website, even your social media. You think it looks great, and then you go back and notice a mistake. And there’s a pit in your stomach. You think to yourself, How could I have done that? I proofread that! I don’t make grammar mistakes.

Well, bad grammar happens, even to people with good grammar skills.

I wonder if it’s gotten worse. Editing is so easy, even on social media! That is, unless you screw up a tweet, and then your only option is to delete it and re-type it. Did people take grammar more seriously when they were using typewriters? Quill pens? The dread you feel when realizing you’ve made an error in pen in a thank you note to your grandmother is way worse than realizing you made a mistake on your blog. What do you do in the thank you note? Cross it out and rewrite it so that it looks like scribble art? Maybe we’re lazier about checking our writing beforehand because we have a lot of ways to check it after the fact.

Trust and believe, even though you can edit a blog post, the feeling of dread is still there when you catch a grammatical error. It’s even worse when you work for a company called Grammatical Art and you have a glaring typo on a blog post you wrote for said company. I mean, I didn’t do that, but a friend of mine may have.

So, even though sometimes bad grammar happens to good (grammar) people, you’re still allowed to wear this shirt.

grammar queen

 

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One Year Later

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September 1, 2016
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It’s now been a year since my daughter was diagnosed with autism. It was a diagnosis met with mixed emotions because while I finally had answers to why she wasn’t talking and why she wasn’t developing the way we expected her to be, I would be lying if I told you it wasn’t devastating to hear this news. It means that she won’t just outgrow this non-speaking phase; she may never communicate in a traditional verbal way. It was a difficult blow to take.

I am the grammar lady; it’s my thing. I love to talk; that’s also my thing. Over the past year, I’ve had to learn how to communicate with a little human in non-traditional ways. We use pictures, gestures, some sign language, and I’ve had to learn how to decipher different pitches of screams in order to communicate with her. It’s been an arduous adventure in patience and perseverance I didn’t know I needed.

Over the past year, we have been very fortunate to go through this with a team of professionals: special educators, paraprofessionals, pediatricians, developmental pediatricians, psychologists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists, and an amazing team of behavioral therapists. I am grateful to these amazingly patient and kind people who are helping her grow every day. While her journey may appear to be a slow one to outsiders, I know she is making incredible strides to be the best person she can be. She has taught me to cherish and value these small steps and to celebrate them as the huge victories they are.

I am impressed by my daughter’s inability to speak in complete sentences, yet being able to tell me what she needs now. She uses color names to describe most things. As I’m sitting here typing this, she’s telling me she wants “juice” and wants the “red” one–the juice box in the red container is what she’s seeking. I would love for her to say, “Mommy, I want an apple juice, please.” However, that’s not our life. Maybe that will change one day and maybe it won’t. That’s what I’ve had to get used to: the unknown development future and being okay with that.

Sadly, ensuring my daughter’s progressive development hasn’t been the only battle I’ve had to encounter this year. I’ve also been battling the loss of insurance where I live. This summer, I found out my daughter’s health insurer would be leaving my state. That in and of itself didn’t alarm me too much as there were other insurers. Then I found out they were leaving, too. Now I am stuck in a county that has no health insurance options that cover my daughter’s very necessary therapies. This is the first place it’s happened in the country and no one knows what to do about it or how to fix it. You can read more about it here: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/the-county-obamacare-forgot-227251

I don’t want to get into a debate about the politics of health care laws and how we got here, but I will be very clear about my factual position: My daughter would not be insured and would not have the access to the care she requires to thrive without the Affordable Care Act and the insurance provided through the federal marketplace. It’s not perfect, but it’s the only option I have to gain access to the health care she needs at this time.

I have spent months writing letters to every politician I can from the mayor of my city to the President of the United States and as of today, September 1, 2016, I have zero solutions or options to fully insure my daughter in 2017. The solution I basically have at this point is to move my family and business to another county or state and hope that it doesn’t happen there next year. That sounds like an asinine non-solution if you ask me.

I still don’t know what I am going to do. I am working every day to come up with an actual solution to help cover my daughter, the other 10,000 Pinal County residents who rely on the same insurance options, and also the other people across the country who will need insurance when they face the same challenge my county is. I am writing letters, I am visiting lawmakers, I am calling US Senators, I am contacting insurance companies to try to find coverage; I am doing a lot of work to ensure my daughter’s development isn’t hindered by a political battle.

I am partially writing this as an update to last year’s post to let you know my daughter is doing great and she’s thriving at her school and in all of her therapies. I am also writing this to explain why I may not be creating as many new products as you’re used to seeing in Grammatical Art. I absolutely love creating and it pains me to not be doing it as often right now. Between my demanding day job, my daughter’s packed schedule, running the business day-to-day, and fighting a political battle for insurance, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything. Creating has definitely taken a backseat. I will get back to it, I just need to get through all of this stuff first.

I truly appreciate your support over the years and I (and my daughter) would not be where I am without you. I look forward to returning to creating soon, but I need some people in Washington to cooperate first. Until then, you can still rely on all of the awesome existing products in the shop.

Resilience is a word I thought I knew. My daughter has taught me what it truly is at the young age of four. I must persevere as she does and get this done.

One Year Later