Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for August 24, 2009

That’ll teach you to be noncommittal.

Oh no! I can’t look!!

This’ll be great. Now Irving might know what it feels like to be bald. The shaved look is pretty popular anyway.

Pay no attention to the buzzing sound you hear…

Ray, in case you missed my response from yesterday, I’m re-posting it below:

Ray C, you are correct. In the case of “‘good’ is an adjective, ‘well’ is an adverb” I was talking about how people “do” a certain thing, as opposed to how they are feeling.

Ask any teenager about his favorite musician, and he’ll likely say,

Yeah, he plays real good.

As opposed to

Yes, he plays very well.

My husband was homeschooled. He liked his curriculum so much that we’ve decided to use it on our children. It’s a bit easier on them because instead of sending entire books to the child to work on all year, they send a 30 page booklet in each subject, All you have to do is 5 pages per subject per day. The children can learn at their own pace.

Hence the reason the curriculum is named PACES.

It stimulates them without overwhelming them. I’ve already checked it out, and I’m very pleased.

Good for your daughter. I’ve always felt like there’s no education quite so deep as one given by a teacher who loves to learn as well as teach.

Several years ago Irvring shaved his head just before he was to be Cathy’s date to an old boyfriend’s wedding. He loved it, she hated it. I wonder what’ll happen now.

First rule of getting a new haircut: Never NEVER NEVER leave how you’ll look up to the hair dresser: you WILL regret it!!

But some people have to learn this the hard way.

DUN DUN DUN! Iriving your a tool man … a tool. You are going to be p-o’ed when the stylist is done, but, it’s your own fault - and trust me, I’ve been shaving my head at least once a month since Sept. 2004, it’s FAR FAR easier to keep clean, and uses a LOT less shampoo LOL.

Also, because it dries near instant, there’s not “hair freezing in the winter” problem.

She had a real sadistic look in her eye in the last panel, and the sound of bzzzz didn’t bode well. Irving you’re gonna be so sorry!

I’ve enjoyed reading your grammar lessons, Librarian. I have one pet peeve and everyone does it even in speech, that’s saying something like “He took a picture of my friend and I.” Shouldn’t that be “my friend and me”? It’s only “You and I” at the beginning of the sentence, right?

Off with his head! I mean hair ;)

I remember when Irving wore his hair buzzed off.

Now the hair is going to hit the fan! Can’t wait for the reaction.

My DH says real men go to barbers.

I’m the barber for my husband & sons. As long as all they want is a buzz cut, I can handle it, but for longer styles I’d have to send them to a barber. They like the convenience of getting their hairs cut by me, and I like to see them well groomed, so it works out well.

LibrarianInTraining - As a veteran homeschooling mom, I can assure you that you won’t regret the sacrifices you will make. I have two sons, one is in college, the other is a senior. I taught both of them all the way from Pre-K through high school. They both love their parents and aren’t in rebellion. (Although they still complain when made to work…) There are areas where I think “if I knew then what I know now” that I would do differently, but overall, it has been a great experience for the whole family. You might consider teaching Grammar in a homeschooling co-op, as there are many of us homeschooling moms who could use the help in teaching that subject. At the very least, please consider leading a workshop at your local homeschooling convention to share tips on teaching Grammar to other homeschooling parents. It is great to hear workshop speakers who are not curriculum salesmen.

I LOVE the eee-ville smirk on her face. Bwa-ha-haaaa.

Macushlalondra said, about 4 hours ago

“I have one pet peeve and everyone does it even in speech, that’s saying something like ‘He took a picture of my friend and I.’ Shouldn’t that be ‘my friend and me’?”

Yes. You’d say “He took a picture of me”, not “He took a picture of I.” Adding “my friend” doesn’t affect the first-person object pronoun.

(I realize you directed your question to LibrarianInTraining, but I have a degree in English and experience as a copy editor, so I feel qualified to respond.)

Mucasha—et al. That’s one of my pet peeves also and am often surprised at how often I hear it - from TV anchors, preachers, politician and others who speak in public and should know better. I, he, she, are subjective case used as the subject of a sentence (usually stated at the beginning). The objective case - me, him, her - should be used when its the object of a preposition. As Sternvogel said, inserting another name.

Please excuse the poor punctuation and other omissions above. E-mail breeds bad habits.

@Macush, I saw an old For Better or For Worse episode which explained how to decide what to use when you don’t know whether it should be “I” or “me”. In this case you have the sentence, “He took a picture of my friend and I.” So leave out the friend for the moment. Should it be “He took a picture of I”, or “He took a picture of me”? Once that’s settled, you can put the friend back in.

People get confused only because there are two words there. Leave out one, and what the other should be becomes clear.

You can use the same trick when you’re not sure whether you should be using “we” or “us”, “they” or “them”, and so on.

Me hopes me have explained it all properly…

O dear, me sees that someone else has already explained it - me didn’t notice. Sorry.

And @RRAmom, in addition to grammar, which MOST people don’t seem to know very well, there’s (shudder) SPELLING. In the end, what it comes down to is just pure memorization. Anyone who tells you that English has reliable rules for how things are spelled just doesn’t know what they are talking about. There’s a well-known poem about enough, cough, slough, and similar words, all spelled the same way but pronounced differently…

@LibrarianInTraininG, I went back to check over yesterday’s comments, and I saw that you mentioned that I had misspelled your name. Took me a minute to see how. Please accept my apologies. I often don’t see something that’s right in front of me.

Now to print all your grammarianly comments so I can read them at my leisure and at my ease (I am always tense in front of a computer screen). Then I’ll check to see whether I disagree with you about anything - but I have a strong feeling that if I do, you will be the one that has it right.

Oh well, live and learn. You’re not alive if you have nothing left to learn.

@LibrarianInTraining, then what part of speech is “well” in the expression “the well baby clinic”?

LibrarianInTraining: Thanks for the post. I do enjoy talking grammar. There’s always more to learn. It’s my daughter-in-law who is the home-schooler, incidentally. My daughter and son were both brought up in the public school system here in Central Florida, which is pretty good. My DIL wants me to help with the math and science stuff, although she’s picking it up pretty well herself. She’s no dummy. RRamon: It’s good to hear such positive news. We were a bit leery about home-schooling, but after meeting our DIL we’re very enthusiastic. Can’t wait to see how the grandkids turn out!

In that case, “well” is indeed an adjective. The drill the teacher made us do was in regards to having the word describing the subject of the sentence as “doing” something.

Example:

He sings well. The “well” describes how he sings. Adverbs always answer the questions how, when, where, and to what extent something is done.

Wellness in reference to health is always an adjective because it describes an object and not an action.