Yo

Greetings from scenic Vancouver, BC, where I am attending the Annual General Meeting of the Writers’ Union of Canada. As predicted, I am one of only a handful of attendees under the age of 50, and apparently one of 4 who are not White. Welcome to the Canadian literary industry.

I have a lot to write about, but I am wayyy too tired to do so today. I will say, though, that a weird thing is happening on this blog. My earlier post about being a stickler for grammar, has suddenly been beset with a barrage of comments by erstwhile experts. I can only conclude that the post has been reproduced or linked to from a site with more traffic than Deonandia typically experiences.

The thrust of most of the comments is this: items that I have identified as grammar mistakes are in fact permitted because, to put it bluntly, lots of people -among them famous writers- use them.

Fine. Whatever. As I mentioned earlier, this is a losing battle for me because language is ultimately defined by the bulk of people who use it. If everyone wants to pronounce “kilometre” incorrectly, for example, then the incorrect way will quickly be accepted as the new correct way. I won’t pretend otherwise.

So people, if that’s your only argument, then save your breath and my commenting space. For the record, I will not be responding to any of the comments on that thread… not out of any sort of protest; I just don’t see the point of arguing over some things that are not resolvable.