The Pantheon of Punctuation

[osprey_archer]

I really, really want the writing tutor job next year. As wonderful as washing dishes is, another year of it and I might run mad and destroy the dish machine in a flashy and permanent manner.

So I’ve been putting together an answer for the essay questions on the writing tutor application: “What do you think you have to offer as a tutor? Why do you want this job? How will you improve your tutoree’s writing skills, as opposed to merely eviscerating the particular papers they bring you, and thus ruining their self-esteem for life?”

I might be paraphrasing that last.

So I’m trying to find the correct balance between truth and answers that will actually get me the job. I do not, you see, want to become a writing tutor because I want to help people. I want to become a writing tutor so I can wage war on the flagrant abuse of apostrophes, restore the comma to its proper place in the pantheon of punctuation, and exhort students to abstain from picking up stray synonyms in sordid thesauri. Just say no. No matter how shiny they look.

As a bonus, I'll inflict my fondness for alliteration on my clients. They'll get their money's worth of neurosis, if nothing else.

I think I’ll continue working on that answer.

***

In other news, I have forgiven the post office for changing the stamp price, because my wonderful mother (who should have gotten an adulatory post on Mother’s Day, but was deprived because I couldn’t reduce her to five hundred words or less) sent me a pack of very stylish one-cent stamps. Asymmetrical my envelopes may be, but they're pretty.

Comments

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

I just got unreasonably excited about the prospect of your being a writing tutor. I have many fond memories of the year I was one.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, you were a writing tutor? What's it like? Any exciting stories?

And as for unreasonably excited--you and me both. I am going to be very distressed if I don't get the job.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

My favorite tutoring session had nothing to do with the kid in question. Before I was a tutor, I had helped a friend through a WRIT 101 class taught my the professor who would become my favorite. Billy, the student, has written this absolutely horrible paper on a subject that I was certain the professor had put in the do-not-touch list...so I knew he was going to harder than usual on the paper. The moral of the story is that on the side of the paper, next to a particularly unsupported statement, and in that small OCD pencil writing there was an elongated eye frowny face over the words "Oh, Billy." It was absolutely one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The girl next to me in the class and I used to pass billy's lamentation back and forth when the professor was displeased at our stupidity.

[visualthinker11.livejournal.com]

applications can be tricky... i personally am not a friend of b.s., but i suppose sometimes its unavoidable... perhaps you have a "vast knowledge of grammar" or something. in the least.

anyway, good luck getting the job! (it sounds like fun work, actually.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Thank you. *crosses fingers* I've turned in the application, so...

It's not a question of b.s. so much as emphasis--emphasizing that I enjoy editing (and am fairly good at it) as opposed to my unreasoning hatred of, say, confused 'there, their, and they're's. Because that just makes me sound like a grammar Nazi.

[team-fen.livejournal.com]

As a bonus, I'll inflict my fondness for alliteration on my clients. They'll get their money's worth of neurosis, if nothing else.

You are very amusing and I am going to enjoy reading your journal entries. I also hope you get that job-- the students of the world could only stand to benefit from someone hell-bent on giving their writing some style. --Imo

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

So I've received the Imo seal of approval, have I? :) Good to know.

I tend to write more book reviews and random geeky stuff than punctuational flights of fancy, so I hope that sort of thing interests you.

[team-fen.livejournal.com]

I hope that sort of thing interests you. Definitely. I like books and geekery too. --Imo

[longlegs21.livejournal.com]

Love correcting grammar. I'm so with you there. And to get paid for doing it? Sounds like a dream job! At my school you have to be recommended for the job by a teacher, or I definitely would have applied! I hope you get the job! If your LJ entries are any indication, you are a grammar and vocabulary all-star. :-)

And alliterative flights of fancy are good for the soul. ;-)

Re stamps: Grr. That reminds me--I have to go buy some one-cent stamps myself. More grrs. :-(