my mother is the queen of grammar corrections- won't read for content EVER, just grammar.

"See Melissa, this sentence needs a semi-colon..."

"But mom, did I prove that Elisabeth Bennet's social construct helped create her rebellious..."

"How would I know Melissa? I cannot read for content with such glaring semi colon issues."

He's the one who nominated me to leadership on our Women's Guild at church.  He says he was only kidding....

Making changes in a church women's group is...well...hard.  Made it through the first year and I think I'm suckered in for another.  Someday the new way will be "the way we've always done it".

I'm sorry, it's probably a sickness, but I can't help it.  An obvious grammar, punctuation, or spelling error is like a laser shining in my eyes.  It's as bad as an itchy tag...it haunts me!  For instance, we just got an invite to our friends' cabin.  At the top, they listed the last names of all the families they invited: Smith's, Johnson's, Walker's...aaahhhggg!  The title is "Couples Weekend."  Why no apopstrophe there, where it belongs, and six at the top where they have no business being?  I'm in agony!  

To top it off, the address is printed as "The Greenstone's..."  Why, why, why?  And this couple is a doctor and an architect.  They have about 15 years of higher education between them.  And I can't find a job!  It must be true; proper grammar just doesn't matter because no one cares.  It's like Tinkerbell dying because people don't believe in fairies.  I'm about ready to give up.

volunteer work this year, but my child's teacher makes ME look organized (trust me, that's bad!)

She never knows what she is doing from one day to tne next so I simply come in when I can and offer to do "grunt work". This has been everything from making copies to chaperoning "on campus" field trips to coming up with impromptu lesson plans for events she forgot.

Yeesh.

I'm also a grammar fiend (god help me as a journalist if I'm not. It's supposed to be one of those founding principles.). But god help me if I'd be so damned rude about it. Bloody hell, why not edit with a pencil so minor, fixable corrections can be made without retyping the damn page.

You and I can skulk in the back together avoiding PTA duty. I'll bring the beer and leave the red pen at home.

That mom either is twisted and mean or a sorely lacking common sense.

just sorry it was at your expense :)  i too discovered that parents club is not for me. it takes a special kind of patience to endure that kind of goofy and i don't have it.

I have a hierarchy of volunteer positions and there is one I would never flake out on, that's my community college choir. The rest of them (PTA positions, classroom help, church choir, church committees, etc.) start to feel overpowering and it's always in May.

Call it "senioritis" but if one more person asks me to do anything for them I will crawl into a hole.  

I am a spelling nut - I see mis-spellings and they drive me crazy.  Typos don't bother me because I know people can't go back and revise their posted text but incorrect word usage (ie: there/their/they're or its/it's) drive me a little batty.  (No, I'm not thinking of MT'ers but rather the world in general).  I think Kindergarten teachers should spend an entire month drilling correct apostrophe usage into kids while they're young.  And then again when they're in first grade.

that our PTA, of which I am president [for three more weeks] is filled with a bunch of really nice women who work really, really hard for our kids. When I came into the school when my kids were in kindergarten, I got the feeling, real or imagined, that the PTA was a pretty tight clique that was hard to break into.  When my group of officers started out, we hardly knew each other at all and I think that has contributed to our seeming like an open group.

I have worked very hard to make it feel like a place where anyone is welcome to join in and pitch in. And we are a really fun group of women, I promise! And always open to new ideas or better ways to do something.

That said, I am involved in another volunteer organization in which the women drive.me.crazy.  because it takes 20 minutes to discuss and decide something that should have taken 3. UGH

oh, and that apostrophe thing someone mentioned up thread -- the Smith's, the Brown's the Johson's -- my biggest pet peeve.

I have everything I've ever written backed up on multiple hard drives and DVD/CDs, going back to when I got my first computer in 1998. I remember when I first started using a computer I was obsessional about saving constantly while I was working, fearing a hard drive crash and the possibility of losing what I was working on.  Mostly those fears are behind me.  :-)

The very idea of writing something on anything but a computer or word processor seems a needless risk in the computer age. With proper precaution no one need ever lose or have to redo their work again, barring some catastrophe.

Does anyone under 60 still use an old-fashioned typewriter?

the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss.  She's a grammar stickler who rants about it quite entertainingly.  

Even better than her rants, though, is the companion children's book -- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!  All full of nice little illustrated examples where punctuation can make drastic, hilarious changes in meaning.

My daughter got that book for Christmas at age almost-five, and thus began the punctuation indoctrination in our household...

None of which has much to do with your volunteer super-editor making THAT big a stink about one little end-of-sentence dot, but oh well.

the anal volunteer is.  that is why I was reluctant to volunteer in school.  
When my son was in 2nd grade there was a mom whose daughter was a real brainiac.  So she had no insight, understanding, training, or patience for the child with learning disabilities.  Therefore, she TORMENTED my son because of his spelling errors (which btw were supposed to be ignored until the entire piece was written and then he could go back and make corrections.  she did it word by word).  He became a reluctant writer even though he could read 2-3 grade levels above.  I will never forget how awful I felt when I found out and went to the teacher.  I was trained as an educator and staying at home at that time and I think many classroom volunteers were doing more harm than good for many students.

the PTA in my kid's school is a cult, run by the vampire that is the principal.  (Seriously- I think he's been there for the full 80 years that the school has existed.  No one can find evidence of another principal.)  I go to PTA once a year and I've noticed that the women who drink the coffee become the officers in the next election.  I think there's something in it that makes you susceptible to suggestions like "Let's sell wrapping paper!" and "You know what we need?  A family movie night where we can all sit on the hard floor and watch Happy Feet again!  And we can sell cotton candy and pizza!  And let's do it on a school night because nothing says fun like 7 year olds hyped up on cotton candy at 9:00 at night!"  Last fall I kept imagining that scene from Soylent Green and visualizing myself knocking over the pot and shrieking "Don't drink that!"- thereby ending the horror.

Just popped over to your blog, so funny.  I love the part where are you are hiding from your visiting relatives and talking about all of the questions they are asking you.  Let's just say, I could relate to that!