After reading the first few lines in the requirements for this first blog posting, it became clear to me that I had no clue what I was going to write about. "What grammatical and mechanical issues do you, as a writer, need to focus on this semester?" Uh-oh. Being as this is my first grammar class, I clearly have many things that would be in my favor to improve upon. I don’t know any rules, regulations, or tricks about grammar. All I know was taught to me in elementary school. Her name was Mrs. Hafford and she made me cry when she told me that sparkle pencils weren’t real and I needed to get some yellow ones like everyone else who could follow directions. Not exactly the greatest experience, but I guess I learned a few things. Since then, I have just kind of added my own flair into my grammar. I threw in a few dashes, some semi-colons, and lots of commas. Lots of commas, understatement of the year.
All of this thought leads me to one conclusion. I am not perfect. Saying that is a little difficult and tough on my ego, but it must be annunciated. Not. Perfect. I build myself up into this great writer who has been perfecting my skill from a young age. But that’s obviously wrong. I need to admit what I am here to say. I am Rachel Raine and I am a comma-a-holic. I use them all day, every day. Any sentence that is longer than a few words could use a comma, or at least I think it should. I think they add a nice pause, can add emphasis, and can be used to communicate different meanings. What I am really doing, with all this comma usage, is pretending that other forms of grammatical tools don’t exist. I never trade a comma for a semi-colon, or maybe even break up a sentence. All of this comma usage turns my writing into some sort of unbearable monster. Something that is so long-winded, that it is hard to read aloud. Reading something that I wrote takes talent and some good lungs.
I opened the first word document I saw of my writing and I found this. There are merely four sentences in this ‘chunk’ of writing. Within these four sentences, I counted nine commas. I am sure this isn’t even my worst. It was just the first thing I found.
Clearly, a lack of self esteem, stemming from childhood, is taking place. According to Dr. Susan Boodman, for the most part these days, girls tend to be both obsessed and dissatisfied with their looks, are too young and shortsighted to understand the implications of surgery, particularly the risks that implants may pose and the long-term maintenance they require (8). Girls choose to go under the knife at a young age, not understanding the intensity of their actions. When a body is in its stage of adolescence and young adulthood, it is not ready to be altered.
So I guess that would be my greatest grammatical issue that I need to focus on. Letting the commas run free and adding a few more tools into my writing. Maybe if I relinquish my addiction to these life-constricting marks, I would be able to write more fluently, more perfectly. Perfect is something I would love to accomplish, even though I know a perfect writer doesn’t exist. At this point, I would settle for a cure to my comma addiction.
