The Once-in-a-While

Daily News:

Love it or List it

Love it or Hate it?

And my continuing war
with Grammarly.

1  Last week I talked a bit about New Year Resolutions.

2  I boldly stated that I don't eat green bananas.

3  

4  Yesterday I bought green bananas.

5  Does that make me an optimist?

6  

7  I like to think so.

8  Notice I wrote "New Year Resolutions."

9  There's a reason for that.

10  If I had written "New Year's Resolutions," the resolutions would belong to the New Year. 

11  The new year always throws me off, especially now that I am retired. 

12  Moving On, Part One: At one point in my final year teaching, I signed up for Grammarly, this website that corrects grammar. I thought if I could copy/paste students' work, I could cut my grading time in half. 

It didn't take long to realize that there is no magic wand when it comes to grading papers.  Ever since signing up, I have had a little Grammarly green light or red light that is in the lower right-hand corner of anything I write. It resembles a billiard ball and has a number in the middle of it that announces the amount of possible errors I have accumulated. I find it annoying as hell.  

13  I clicked on it this morning and it brought me to a Grammarly Sign-Up page. 

14  At first I became jubilant! It didn't seem to know that I had already signed up.

15  I figured I finally got this tick off my neck, metaphorically speaking. 

16  I took a second look. "Already have an account?" it asked. 

17  Grammarly.

18  The gift that keeps on giving. 

19  Not a fan. The red billiard ball just spun me a 7. Thanks, pal. I may have already written that I nicknamed Grammarly R2D2. More on that in a minute. 

20  I like to throw a few fragments around just to feel I have SOME sort of control of this drivel.

21

22  "Drivel." 

23   Like that?

24   Like that? That's a "do-you" understood.

25  Grammatically speaking. 

27  God it's fun being a grammar nerd! 

28  As an added bonus, Grammarly ALSO underlines all of my potential errors by putting a red line under each one. 

29  That's mean. YOU can't see them, but I can. 

30  So far, in this piece alone it underlined these words:

"first" 

"do-you" 

 "God"

31  I had a reason for each. I didn't want a comma after the word "first" in item 14. I didn't want a hint of a pause. I feel that "do-you" understood should be in quotes, because in many grammar books, "you" understood is in quotes. 

32  I deliberately didn't place a comma after the word "God" because it was my personal choice. I didn't WANT a pause there either. 

33  That's both the joy and the trouble with writing. 

34  I've used four or five books on writing in order to make this entire thing happen the past few years.

35  The main thing one must do when writing is to effect clarity. 

36  Grammarly corrected me on the word "effect" in the previous sentence, for example. I knew that "effect" isn't often used as a verb, but there are times when it can. It means "to produce as an effect; bring about; accomplish; make it happen if used with an object." Merriam-Webster defines it as "to cause to come into being." 

37  Anybody lookin'?

38  I copped that first definition from Dictionary.com, btw.

39  Grammarly ALSO red-lined the word "copped."

40  "Did you mean 'copied'? it asked. 

41  Duuuuuuuhnope. Informal for "stole," but not incorrect. 

42  And it DIDN'T even notice the word "Duuuuuuuhnope."

43  Do I care?

44  Duuuuuuuhnope!

45  It's fun messing with my little R2D2. 

46  Grammarly. He follows me around and toots.

47  Little guy.

48  Moving On, Part Two: I began work on this piece Monday night and had the teevee on HGTV. I watched a few shows about couples wishing to change location, and then do re-models and such when of a sudden the immortal Love It or List It came on. 

49  To me, it is the granddaddy of all fixer-upper shows. We could argue for Property Brothers, which airs tonight at 9, but I wanted the focus on Love It or List It. 

Drew and Jonathan Scott, the Property Brothers.

50  If you haven't seen it you haven't lived. It stars Hilary Farr, a talented home designer AND actress, and David Visentin, who tries to find houses that already have everything the clients want in them. She has talent beyond talent, and he deliberately acts like a snooty, cartoonish villain. 

51  Historically accurate? Wouldn't know. Too lazy to look it up. 

52  Oh, and before YOU correct me, Hilary spells her name the correct way, as opposed to <ahem> OTHER wimminz who shall remain nameless. 

53  Hilary's net worth is 7 million, and David's net worth is

4.2 million. Property Brother Jonathan Scott's net worth is
5 million. He does the design AND some of the grunt work. His brother Drew's net worth is a whopping 10 million. He's a realtor. 

I taught school. 

54  Who knew? 

55  Great show. NEVER figured them to be rolling in that sort of dough. 

56  I found all of that info late Monday night. 

57  Mind boggling. 

58  I gottago. 

59  Hope you have a mind-bogglingly terrific day. I'm pretty boggled.

60  Grammarly just corrected "gottago."

61  You can run, but you can't hide. Occupational hazard.

62  See you again.

64  Live life.

66  Love life.

67  Peace.  

~H~

fin.