Have you ever found, when you watch a movie
about a cop or a spy or a superhero that you feel slightly jealous of all the
excitement in their lives? But then you console yourself with the fact that at
least with your everyday job – your life is completely safe from evil,
dangerous forces.
Because we all have super menial, safe,
normal, boring jobs that don’t come with any risks, right?
I disagree! Don’t we all have some
occupational hazards in our jobs? Some might be physical like getting hurt
working heavy machinery, while other could be psychological like becoming a
little bit crazy from working in the psych ward. For secretaries it’s sexual
harassment. For wrestlers it’s a broken neck. For musicians it’s drinking and
drugs. You get the idea.
My occupational hazard is – I’m a Grammar
Nazi!
I found the best description of my condition
so far on Uncyclopedia:
“Grammar Nazis are people (or cats) which use their freakishly and/or annoyingly
powerful understanding of and compliance with grammar and spelling to attempt
to “correct” others, usually the blissfully-oblivious-to-the-outside-world
members and users of the Internets, who only understand the grammatically genocidal
text-speak.”
Yep. That’s me. I just can’t help myself. And
it doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by bad grammar and spelling everywhere I
go! Luckily most of my friends and family have all learned to accept it and love
me for me (those that really matter anyway) – and try really, really hard to
suppress their annoyance when I correct them.
But I think what bothers them the most, is
that I’m constantly pointing out mistakes everywhere, not necessarily their
mistakes. If we’re in a grocery shop and the signs on the walls have
mistakes in them – I point it out and lament the death of the English language! When
we’re in a restaurant and I see mistakes in their menu, I point out how much I
hope their food makes up for their bad language.
I’d like to think that I’m quite polite about
it all though. I found this handy guide on how to be a Grammar Nazi , and I’m doing quite well so far.
Just to explain where my realisation came
from – I randomly felt the need to defend my behaviour to a friend the other
day. I’m guessing it’s because deep down I feel guilty and/or mean when I’m
always correcting people. I must admit that once in a while people make me
giggle and I might mildly tease them – but that only happens with those closest
to me that I truly love.
So anyway, I realised that this person has
strange little habits that come with his job too. He’s in the lighting
industry, and everywhere we go – EVERYWHERE – he has a good look at the lights
and makes a very knowledgeable comment about it. I’m sure that the comments are
really interesting (and sometimes even I find them interesting) and he really
knows his stuff.
And that gave me the idea that just like
that’s one of his little occupational hazards – my Grammar Nazi behaviour is
one of mine.
Just a side note – it’s not always a hazard
either. It actually comes in handy sometimes.
Friends can always check their spelling with
me if they’re unsure at all. Of course – I’m not perfect either, which is why I
have Dictionary.com saved as a bookmark on my phone!
PS – try to guess how many times I read over
this post to make sure I didn’t make any grammatical errors. * Holding thumbs *
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