So’s Your Grammar

Yup, grammar can be fun. Or it can kill you. The picture of a dead guy on the cover yells fun.

(signed in person!)

There’s a fine line between being able to draw simple, witty pictures that will appeal to children and not being able to draw at all.

Actually, I’m lying. It’s not a fine line at all. It’s a big, wide gulf.

Are so.

Bobble heads are cool.

Yeah, I’d totally rather look like one of the pencil necks. Except maybe the one on the left. He’s got kinda a ska sensibility to him.

Yeah. Just yeah.

(Cultural sensitivity teaching moment #1)

Did I mention yet the attention and detail that went into the illustrations here? When you consider the entire book, I bet the drawings took at least 15 minutes to complete.

Extra points for G’s goatee.

I get it that May is a little girl with a scary vacant eyes and a flaming red fright wig.

But is Can facing forward or backward?

In other words, I can see that Can is an ass. But are we looking at Can’s can?

You will probably get what you want more quickly if you are a cheerleader named Wanna, but I’m skipping back to an earlier lesson. Let’s keep moving forward.

(Cultural sensitivity teaching moment #2)

I am concerned that we are about to cross into a section of the book that may not be appropriate for children.

Oh. Never mind. I misunderstood.

Notice that phrase that gets used here? The phrase is “mixed up.” Remember that for a moment. We’ll use it further down.

I say I hope his singing is better than his drawing.

Or “Water got drunk.”

Who’s arithmetic?

There’s that “mixed up” phrase again. Keep watching.

Did I mention my concerns that some of this grammar could be too risqué for some younger minds?

Hey! What happened to “up” in the phrase “mixed up”? You mean that if the phrase comes at the end of the sentence, you can’t include that tiny little two-letter word? Just because it would be the last word in the sentence? Because, even though it’s not a preposition, it looks just like a word that is?

As Winston Churchill said, “This is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.”

Getting mixed is what happens to cake batter.

(Incidentally, nice mnemonic for helping us all remember the difference between “lie” and “lay.” To remember the difference, all you have to remember is: the difference.)

How about “I feel self-righteous”? Or “I feel sanctimonious”?

My mother never made any mistakes.