I hate making word and grammar mistakes. I can still vividly remember when I was 17 visiting my sister at the University of Chicago where she was a graduate student and playing Trivial Pursuit with her friends. They were REALLY smart, needless to say, and I read aloud a card mispronouncing the word “municipal.”  I thought it was munincipal, with a second “n,” so that’s how I said it, and, I mean, I can still hear the laughter and all of them correcting me. Her friends, not my sister.  Even today when I send off an email and see that I’ve accidentally sent it with a mistake—“there” for “they’re”—I feel like a loser. OMG. She’s going to think I’m so dumb. Through college and graduate school, I worked tirelessly to make sure I knew my grammar and spelling. I’d copy down beautiful sentences from famous authors or practice diagramming sentences out of my old Warriner’s Grammar book. … [continue reading...] about The Trouble With Rules