What College Can Do For You

I've come to realized that the biggest thing college has done for me is make me an increasingly judgmental person. I was brought up by reformed-hippy, open-minded, peace-loving parents who taught me it was best to not judge anyone and to never feel superior (though I've come to realize my father doesn't really feel this way, which sort of shows how I take after him).

In high school, I generally judged people by how they treated others. However, since being in college/ living on my own I've come to judge others on many things: what they major(ed) in, the music they listen to, the condition of their car (new gift from daddy? I hate you.), what beers/ cocktails they drink, the movies they watch, the clubs/ organizations they belong to, what they wear (Boys should not wear skinny girl jeans!), HOW MUCH THEY TIP THEIR WAITPERSONS (notice my avoidance of gender-bias language), the books they love (or a noticeable lack of books they love), their adherence to stereotypes (Oh, you think the Bell Jar is the best book ever? Yeah, you're boring), their blind adherence to trends (When did Al Gore become God?), whether or not they can pay their bills on time, whether or not they pay their bills at all, etc.

Recently, my new judgment criteria is grammar. To be fair, my grammar is far from perfect. On top of that, I'm a terrible typist, a horrible editor (when it comes to by own work), and a bad speller, despite the efforts of spellchecks everywhere. I am by no means claiming to have perfect grammar. However, I do believe that anyone who believes something they've written should be published or simply read by others should endeavor to have the best grammar possible. If I can see your mistakes, just think how glaringly obvious they are to people who actually know this shit.

My friend (and possibly the only person who reads this blog) "Nina Myers" wrote a piece for her blog discussing Meghan McCain's inane blog entry on the woes of dating when your father is a would-be-president election-loser. While Nina pointed out the ridiculousness of what John McCain's spawn actually had to say, all I could think was "This fucking bitch went to Columbia and she writes like this!" Nina's opinion on the matter is both sharper and more humorous than what I have to say, but I simply must have my grammar rant!

To make my beef with Ms. McCain clear, here are just two of the offending passages from her blog:

"And when I friend someone on Facebook... I read their profile to learn more about them."

"But I have become something I used to despise: people who let politics dictate his or her attraction to someone."

Most of us (even those of us who went to podunk high schools like mine) learned in 11th or 12th grade what a subject-pronoun agreement is. When you befriend someone on Facebook, you look at his or her profile. People let politics dictate their attraction. It only makes the situation worse to me when Ms. McCain incorrectly tries to apply the "his or her" to that second sentance.

I won't even get into her punctuation issues, or her stubborn insistence on starting every other sentence with "And." Yeah, you could argue that is a style choice, but would a compound sentence or two really kill her? It only amplifies my annoyance that she graduated from my dream school, evidently thanks to her daddy's wallet.

In short, Meghan McCain, I judge you for your thoroughly shitty grammar.