Grammar, and an era ends
I’m still doing well on the old typos I see. Thanks for the comments about stopping for a couple of bears instead of beers. It’s amazing what you can find in Yialos these days.
I am using Grammarly though, which helps with some of the obvious ones, like form instead of from. Before I bought this plug-in, I trawled through my last manuscript, running a search and find for form and changing each instance where it as wrong. Now the thing does it for me. Well, it underlines words and says, ‘Are you sure about this?’ And, ‘I think you should really get a grip you know, no-one says that these days.’ No, it doesn’t, but it would be fun if it did. Instead, it underlines and highlights where normal grammar would suggest you are doing something wrong. Or should that be, doing something incorrectly? Or, incorrectly doing something?’ Grammarly will sort it out for you. I’m not selling this handy add-in, but I am impressed by it. Last time I mentioned it, they wrote to me and thanked me for doing so and asked if I’d put a link. I promised that I would, and so here it is: www.grammarly.com
By the way, before you start to worry and wonder, you can set it to UK spelling and grammar, or USA if you prefer to use that version for your spelling, which I only suggest you do if you are American. Or Canadian? What do they use? American English or Proper English? Whatever they use I am sure it is a lot more friendly, calmer, more polite, caring and – of want of a better adjective – nicer than American. (OMG, USA, you must be SO embarrassed to have elected that. Did you not learn from Brexit? Enough said.)
I’m in danger of wittering on again, but I am looking out at the calm sea, and the sun on the mountains and that view does tend to take you away from what you were thinking about and make you think of nothing. Or, it makes you think about leaving this blog half way through and heading out for a stroll across to a far beach, or through the valley to watch the wildlife, or up into the hills for a ramble. But I can’t. I am playing the piano for someone in a while and then going for a glass-raising at the Sunrise Café for a friend who passed away recently. It’s Thursday as I write and there is only one more day to go before the weekend. And this weekend promises… Nothing! Or whatever I want to do because there is nothing in the diary, at the moment.
On the way back from our glass raising this afternoon we are also going to stop at Mandeio’s Café as there is sad news there too. It’s closing down today, and unless someone else takes it on, not reopening. I am not sure where this will leave the groups of teenagers who go there for coffee of an afternoon and evening or the cinema that Peter has been so ably running these last couple of years. We shall have to wait and see, but it does feel like the end of an era. And the end of a quick pizza, a good club sandwich and a very nice chicken salad, to say nothing of the various bears they served. Beers.
