Oh dear God! This is not going to be easy. Please, just give me a moment or two to compose myself. I need a little more time to think this through.
Really, I thought I would be able to come out with this secret. My loins have been girded ready for the moment of revelation. But now that the actual moment has arrived I find myself hesitating. I am so sorry. Please bear with me for a moment longer.
Oh my goodness, my heart is pounding! A cold sweat is upon me. I am going to tell you. I absolutely am. Just as soon as I am able to control my rapid breathing. I need a brown paper bag to breathe into. That is supposed to help.
For pity's sake! Why is it so impossible to find a brown paper bag when you need one? This empty crisp packet will have to do. Mmm.. that's a bit better. Breathing slower. Heart rate decreasing. Calm John, calm. Control the panic.. that's it, well done.
Sorry about that. Terribly embarrassing. I was talking myself out of a potentially serious panic attack. Things should be all right now.
To hell with it! I am going to tell you my sordid little secret. Even if it means, you never look on me in the same light again. Are you sitting down? Are you? If not please do so now before you read on. OK everybody, here comes the confession. I am going to say it loudly."I CANNOT CONJUGATE A VERB!"
Yes, you heard me right. Not only can I not conjugate a verb, I don't even know what conjugating a verb means. I have always thought that conjugating was something people did on their wedding night. I do know that a verb is a doing word, but I can't for the life of me, figure out what doing it on your wedding night, has to do with writing.
While I'm at it, you may as well also know that I have not the faintest idea what a split infinitive is either. In fact I don't even know what an infinitive is, so I couldn't split one even if I wanted to. Also I have to tell you that I often put i before e, or is it e before i? See, I don't know. It is only the spellchecker thing that saves me from embarrassment.
Unbelievable! I hear you exclaim. Calls himself a writer! I can almost hear your sharp intake of breath. I do not blame you for being shocked by this revelation. I thoroughly deserve any scorn you may heap upon me. After all I have been masquerading as a writer for months now.
Please, please dear friends, forgive me for this despicable deception. How can I make things up to you? Well firstly, and most obviously, this blog should come to an end. After all I am not a real writer.
Secondly I want to share the earnings from my blog with all my followers. Yes you loyal followers, that I have deceived so outrageously. To date, over the eight months that I have been writing, I have managed to earn the sum of £5.31p from advertising revenue. Actually, sharing this sum among my 47 followers is good for me. I have been agonising over what to spend the money on. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to work out how much each person gets. I am also hopeless at doing sums.
So that is it then. Now you know the truth. Once again, my heartfelt apologies. No more blog from me. Goodbye dear friends.
Unless I hear from you in the comments section of course. You may have it in your hearts to forgive me. I throw myself on your mercy.
I shall be watching the comments section like a hawk. Crikey! I might have shot myself in the foot here.
I see you have no comments so far. It's not looking good. As far as conjugating verbs, I had to learn that in school very early on. And I was not allowed to split infinitives, even when I was speaking at home. I think I was supposed to be the perfect child or something. I always chuckle because my parents were much more lax with my six younger siblings than they were with me, especially about grammar. I, in turn was stricter with my children than my siblings were with theirs. I don't believe ["i" before "e", except after "c" or sounding as "a" as in neighbor and weigh (help me, please)]that it hurt us at all.
ReplyDeleteWhere does this stuff come from? You have a highly active mind. You're not getting paid nearly enough. Maybe you should be charging your followers to read your clever anecdotes and ramblings. A pleasure as always, John!
ReplyDeleteShoots hand in air (not literally) saying excitedly, 'Please, Sir, I know about split infinitives. Excuse me for bragging. Anyway, you must have heard about 'writer's licence' which means you can get away with anything so long as the story's good.
ReplyDeleteAlso, did you know that you can sell your blog on Amazon? You won't get a lot for it but the opportunity is there...grins.
Yeah it is the followers fault, dang them! :D
ReplyDeleteI have the answer....move to Canada! We don't give a flying fig about correct grammar.
ReplyDeleteJane x
I always assumed that conjugating verbs is when they all get together in one place, usually for things like praying or pot luck dinners and such.
ReplyDeleteIf I am somehow incorrect it makes no difference because I don't call myself a writer anyway so I'm off the hook. I can even make a run on sentences if I so choose and no one would really care although I don't know why I would want to run I've never cared for running in the least
Well, at least you don't have to worry about having a dangling modifier. Oh, my goodness! Did I just say that! About your loose advertising change, why not have a lottery for the best split infinite, I'll bet it would be easy to quickly identify the best entry.
ReplyDeleteO give it up! All writers have editors. You need to really go on with the blog (split infinitive). I say... go goes go! (Go on writing the blog- whom else could be laugh at?)
ReplyDeleteBah. Of all the people I could've heard this from... John, you have a finer mastery of the English language than most people I know (I'm American, so I know that doesn't mean much). The point is, effective communication is the goal of grammar, and you communicate very effectively, so you have nothing to worry about. If you like writing, you should keep writing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in case you hadn't noticed, they really do let anybody have a blog.
You are a good writer and proof that you don't need to know how grammar works to be able to use it. Just like you don't need to know how a computer works to be able to use it.
ReplyDelete