A man who thought he had successfully stowed away on an Overlord ship found out that they had been aware of his presence all along. Once on the Overlords’ planet, he visited one of the Overlords’ museum of things collected on various planets. One of the objects was a gigantic eye from a truly huge creature. The man then knew that the Overlords could not bring everything in an intact state back to their planet and that even they had limits.
Of my many former colleagues, one in particular comes to mind. She was brilliant but could not spell.
I am convinced that a spelling gene exists. I seem to have it. However, I lack just about everything else that would have helped me to have made a better living. Too bad that I don’t have more of my dad’s genes.
I love cats and have had many. But I never fooled myself. I knew that they were only pretending to be tame because they lacked the size for me to take them as a threat.
I also used to teach English. Sometimes, a properly and gently phrased question was the better course. Other times, when a wrong word did not hinder the sentence’s meaning, I did not say anything.
In general, if my emotions tempted me to say something, I knew that I needed to resist.
I used to count the likes the kids used when speaking. They took my ribbing well, especially because I encouraged them to look for and comment upon my linguistic foibles.
Back in my teaching days, I found that the students needed to expand their vocabularies and to begin using more precise words when writing. So, I developed a list of Forbidden Words: get, really, very, good, a lot, stuff, and thing/s.
Each year, the first response was “You just destroyed my whole vocabulary.”
I used to say something similar, but one vet told me that he didn’t like it. He said that during a general conversation, not as a direct reply to me. So, I try to avoid it.
A little bit ago, I heard from a current service member; he’s the son of a teaching colleague. He’s now a major in the Air Force, and he said that he thinks that thank you for your service is more appropriate. I told him about the vet and what he said.
The major said that Vietnam era doesn’t like it because of how they were treated when they came back, but newer Persian Gulf generations seem to be OK with it.
Thanks. I had forgotten that one.