I have been finding myself at a loss for words as of late.

I’m really not sure what it is. I was thinking, at first, that it was the strange weather changes that we’re having – sort of that weird Indian summer even though it’s not yet technically summer.

I’m getting fed up with these days of 60 degrees followed by days in the 90’s, and of course this weekend they are calling for temperatures to hit “triple digits” (it sounds more ominous when the news anchor says “triple digits” doesn’t it).

Seriously, why can’t they just say “it’s going to be one hundred degrees on Saturday?”

No, they have to sensationalize it to “we’re going to be hitting the triple digits this weekend for the first time since last year when it did the same thing this time of year since it’s California and it gets hot here”.

It really makes me mad.

Actually what makes me even more mad (madder, most maddest) is this stupid grammar rule that if you are putting something in quotes and it is at the end of a sentence you put the punctuation inside the quote. I think that’s stupid and it’s a grammar rule that I refuse to follow and will actively protest for as long as anyone will listen to me.

If I want to quote something, I might quote something that doesn’t have punctuation or has punctuation that is different and distinct from the main sentence, right?

What if I said “he loves that shirt.”

That would be WRONG because the sentence is supposed to be a question.

What if I said “he loves that shirt”?

This is much more clear. I didn’t say He loves that shirt? because I’m not asking you if he loves the shirt, I’m asking you for your response if I were to say He loves that shirt.

See where I’m going with this? Grammar bothers me. But there really is a practical reason for this rant since I do consider myself to be a budding author (with 8 published books that you can get in paperback or on Kindle by going to amazon.com and searching for “Heath Buckmaster” right now), and I would at least like to be known as an author who can write a clear sentence that people can understand – at least some of the time. (Does “shameless plug” get capitalized or italicized according to grammar rules?)

Poetry is a delicious exception to every rule of grammar. You can pretty much break every single rule and still come out with something that people will say “Oh I loved it!” and “Isn’t he Avant-garde?” about. (Ok, see in this sentence there should be sentence-ending punctuation INSIDE the sentence – isn’t grammar awesome?)

But when it comes to general fiction, the audience seems to prefer grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs, and all that jazz. It hurts me. If I want to split my infinitives, or end a sentence with a delightful preposition then I think I should do it – is this something we can all agree on?

We all know whom should be corrected when they tell us who to listen to, and which one of the thats and whiches is the correct which to use. But who can we look to and to whom can we look when we just can’t stand all these rules anymore?

You can look to me. I vow to continue breaking the laws of language for as long as you’ll keep reading me and buying my stuff . I pledge to whomever and whatever is listening that I will adapt the language to suit my own perverse needs, and in return I will deliver unto you and yours an amalgamation of prose and verse (that’s where I got perverse) that delights the senses and tickles the imagination (and perhaps the erogenous zones).

Grammar beware…I’m coming after you.

And that’s my Friday rant. Now I feel better.