Anyone whose grammar I've ever corrected, please stand up. (Yes, you too my third grade teacher. And probably my second grade one as well.)
Now that you're all standing, you are welcome to laugh at me for the title of this post.
I have always been a curve-wrecker, and a grammar (and spelling) corrector, and I have a little bit of a nerd-crush on Grammar Girl for her ability to solve those few tricky grammar issues of which I'm unsure (em dash vs en dash, anyone?). Since becoming a mommy, my grammar has seriously gone downhill. And my spelling. (And doing part-time copywriting doesn't help -- ads are generally riddled with grammar issues! For example, starting sentences with "and.")
After mentioning mommy grammar in my post on The F Bomb, I have been thinking about doing a whole post on the topic. Today I placed Eme in her stroller so I could take her on a walk to get her to go down for her nap, then proceeded to say "it's sleepsing time!" This made me realize that today is a mommy grammar kind of day.
A few "rules" for mommy grammar:
1. It's okay to make anything plural. In fact, pluralizing things just makes them cuter. Examples include milks ("Who wants some milks?"), sleeps ("Are you ready to go to sleeps?"), poops ("Did you make a poops in your pantses?"), etc.
2. If something is already plural, stick some extra letters at the end, but only if it makes the word cuter rather than more awkward. (see above: pantses; also, feeties, handsies, toesies, etc., but NOT fingerses -- that's just hard to say)
3. Remove any prepositions, or any parts that would normally be a necessary part of a sentence, that make the sentences cuter if you take them out. (Example from The F Bomb post: "Did you fart your pants" where the normally necessary preposition "in" has been removed. Also, "Eme want to go store?", etc.)
4. Add extra words, or rearrange the normal order of the sentence, if that makes it sound funnier. For example: "Who does goes to the outside?", "Eme is the most stinksiest baby!", etc.
5. Have fun! I had often been annoyed by hearing other mothers butcher the English language to their babies. Turns out it's much cuter and funnier to use incorrect grammar when it's your own baby.
Yes, eventually I'll need to make sure that Eme understands the appropriate grammar (though I'm pretty sure she has The Nerd Handbook 2.0 -- in fact, I think she was revising my original version while still in the womb), but for now I'm not going to worry. We'll get there.
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*stands up*
ReplyDelete*sits back down*
;)
Um, so if I have a baby drinken can become a word?
ReplyDeleteOkay, add another check to the side with reasons to have children. Score one for mom.
Drinken will still never actually be a word, but you will no longer have to feel bad for using it if you are talking to your baby. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, I am SO guilty of a lot of these bullet points. I'm known for being grammatically correct, but I am also known more often than not for beginning a sentence with "And". It doesn't seem to bug other people, but it actually bugs me! Great post!
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ReplyDeleteDon't forget the Maternal License to turn any noun into a verb, generally in an exclamitory sentence. Of course that comes much later when they are teenagers and are asking for stuff all the time. Example:
ReplyDeleteSon: Mom, can I have the car?
Mom: I'll car you!
Daughter: Joe wants to take me to a party.
Mom: I'll party him!
[Note: There is a variant of this Mom grammar that could be called Wife Subgrammar Variant A. Example:
Husband: Honey, I'm gonna watch the baseball game. I'll fix the "insert broken thing of choice here" later.
Wife: I'll baseball you!]
Given that you are my mother, I can testify that you've threatened to "car" me more times than I can count.... :)
ReplyDelete