Your Grammar Stinks

 

Taken from actual Church Notices.

The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals. 

The sermon this morning: 'Jesus Walks on the Water.' The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.' 

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands. 

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say 'Hell' to someone who doesn't care much about you. 

Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help. 

Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation. 

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs. 

Next Thursday there will be try-outs for the choir. They need all the help they can get. 

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So, ends a friendship that began in their school days. 

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow. 

At the evening service, tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice. 

Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered. 

The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility. 

Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow. 

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon. 

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10.00am. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done. 

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday. 

Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7.00pm. Please use the back door. 

The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7.00pm. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy. 

Weight Watchers will meet at 7.00pm. at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance. 

 The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours

Status Quo Ad Infinitum Cave Canem

 

Amazing how we put up with things and let them continue rather than taking action to remedy the situation. Like the tiny spider we allow to escape up the wall and let him create cobwebs everywhere which we shall have to clean afterwards. Or the squeaky door hinge that we tolerate rather than apply a tiny spot of oil to smooth over our lives. Or worse still, the use of bad grammar when speaking or writing.

I went up to the bedroom and threw out the bed; it was high time it became my room I reasoned in a fit of pique. It is MY room not the bed's room! The same applied to the bathroom and dining room. Why have we allowed our language to let furniture appropriate room space in what is in effect my house, my rooms and my space?

"With this I shall put up no longer!" I cried out of the window ensuring that I do not end a phrase with a preposition.

"To what are you referring, kind Sir?" asked a passer-by in proper grammatical English.

"To whatever the particular situation happens to apply at the time in question," I said emphatically.

At this point a flying crow off-loaded the rejects of its digestive system upon my head. 

"Get in and stop acting the fool," said my wife from the kitchen. 

I shut the window and went to the bathroom to clean myself, but alas it was there no more. It was an empty room devoid of the furnishing accoutrements which make up a bathroom. It was just a vacant empty shell where once it was a central functioning facility.

Tired and exhausted I went to the bedroom and lay on the floor.

One Day I Was A Boy

 

I was reminiscing the other day when I was a boy at school and my English teacher said to me "Your grammar stinks!"

I remember being quite upset at this sudden outburst, especially since my grandma always smelled of lavender.

When I got home I told my father what the teacher had said and he asked "Which grand-mother? ... I know my own mother always smells of the sweetest delicate best quality Norfolk lavender. Although I'll admit your mother's mom does smell of potpourri!"

I explained that the teacher had not specified which grandma stank. So my father wrote a letter of complaint which I had to take to school with me.

My teacher replied that she had never commented on, nor would she ever presume to comment on, my family's body odour; although she suggested that I eat less beans!

On reading her letter my father gave me a clip round the ears. He then wrote again to the teacher apologising for the misunderstanding and explaining that beans were less expensive than other foods.

On reading my father's letter the teacher gave me detention after school.

On the Saturday I went to Confession. Our church had an old fashioned confessional which was a wooden booth where the priest sat and the penitents would kneel on either side and confess through a small window.

I told the priest all that had happened and how it was really a non-sin on my part thus deserving a lighter penance this week. He said "Don't speak so loud I can smell your grandmother kneeling on my other side!" Although he did not specify which grandma he could smell.

Then he gave me an extra penance for speaking loudly and for drawing attention to old peoples' body odour. Which technically I had not done because it was not me who started all this; it was my English teacher who said "Your grammar stinks!"

I think the church got this whole question of confession and absolution wrong somehow. I got a penance for my teacher's sin!

Moral: So did Jesus.

Statistics and Grammar

I find it irritating how we tend to glorify ignorance on TV. Frequently, on British TV, we see so called comedians pretending, or possibly not, that they do not know maths, or even their native English grammar. And everybody laughs.

What example is that setting the younger generation who believe that education is not important, especially maths. Or expressing themselves in text speak on modern gadgets.

Mathematics is important to life. Especially statistics.

How else are people to know how many "friends" they have on social media and what percentage of these friends are personally known to them compared to those who have just clicked the friends icon on the website?

I like statistics. I use them to check how many readers I have on this blog and my other website. And how many readers are new or returning loyal readers like you just now. Thank you, by the way. I am very grateful.

Statistics can teach us a lot in life.

Did you know for example that 9 out of 5 people cannot do fractions?

And that one out of seven dwarfs is Grumpy?

Or that six out of seven dwarfs are not Happy?

Or that 50% of people do not understand percentages - that's almost half.

Or there is a 90% probability my wife would get angry if I put a red item in the washing machine - that's a 50/50 chance I guess, so let's try it and see!

You see ... statistics is or are important.

And so is grammar.

I remember when one day my English teacher said to me "Your grammar stinks!"

I was upset since my grandma always smelled of lavender.

I told my father what the teacher had said and he asked "Which grand-mother?"

He wrote a letter of complaint.

My teacher replied that she had never commented on, nor would she ever presume to comment on, my family's body odour!

On reading her letter my father gave me a clip round the ears and then wrote again to the teacher apologising for the misunderstanding.

On reading my father's letter the teacher gave me detention after school.

On the Saturday I went to Confession. Our church had an old fashioned confessional which was a wooden booth where the priest sat and the penitents would kneel on either side and confess through a small window.

I told the priest all that had happened. He said "Don't speak so loud I can smell your grandmother kneeling on my other side!" Although he did not specify which grandma he could smell.

Then he gave me an extra penance for speaking loudly and for drawing attention to old peoples' body odour. Which technically I had not done because it was not me who started all this; it was my English teacher who said "Your grammar stinks!"

I think the church got this whole question of confession and absolution wrong somehow. I got a penance for my teacher's sin!

Moral: So did Jesus.