I have always loved spelling. Several dictionaries populate my house. Each of my sons has one and I have, well, at least three. I have a thesaurus as thick as my Webster's Dictionary and, occasionally, I've been spotted flipping through the dictionary for fun. Let's face it; I love words. I mean, really, really love them.
It seriously causes almost physical pain when I'm reading a book or a website and come across typos. Fragment sentences I can handle, but those pesky misspellings or incorrect apostrophe uses really make me nuts. I am that nerd who reads the news feed across the bottom of the screen and gets annoyed each time the misspelled word repeats--but at least I haven't called them on it, yet.
I was the annoying friend in school who would point out mistakes in the notes you passed me in class, or correct them and hand them back to you. It's amazing I had friends, really.
With this blessing (or curse), what else could I do but become a writer? Combine the love of words with the very persistent voices in my head and it was either write or have myself committed--though at times I considered the latter.
The constant butchering of the American language (I don't say English because we aren't "across the pond" so to speak) pains me. Swear and curse words are not only vulgar but show a lack of schooling or intelligence--like you haven't learned enough or aren't smart enough to think of another word. There's hundreds of ways of saying something. Some dialects that have sprung up in recent decades are like purposely talking as though you are uneducated. I'm not perfect, I didn't graduate college, but I do remember my high school language classes.
So I write. When I create a name or a place, I add the word to my word processor's dictionary so it doesn't get underlined in red. (Though it drives me crazy that comcast's dictionary hates contractions) I enjoy what I do. And I think I do it pretty well.
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