14 June 2009

Seriously, people, you're killing me here.

So in church this morning, there was one song where the slides HAD NOT ONE SINGLE BIT OF PUNCTUATION. Not one. Except... EXCEPT apostrophes in all occurrences of the word "it's", which UNFORTUNATELY was TOTALLY WRONG, because it should have been "its", being used as a possessive pronoun, NOT a contraction of "it is".

It's just cruel. [See what I just did, right there? I used "it's" appropriately.]

6 comments:

Wendy said...

I'm with you on spelling and things like it's versus its... but I don't think our church does punctuation on the slides either. It just doesn't seem necessary. Having a husband who works really hard on the technical side of church (running sound - thus missing out on much of the worship experience of it, sadly), give them a break! In the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter THAT much, does it???? ... Or why don't you volunteer to help out with it if it really bothers you that much?

Life is a Marathon said...

Yes, Kiti! Consider it your new ministry! It would thrive! :)

jeric2003 said...

Honestly, I think I'd rather have no punctuation over having bad punctuation, Deb! Yesterday, there were periods and semi-colons in all sorts of wrong places. And they used the word "sacrafice". And instead of "deliverer" it was just the word "deliver". I mean, a simple spell check could help them!

Wendy, did you miss when Deb said she was thinking about volunteering? I'm actually considering the same thing.

When I'm singing, seeing obvious grammar and spelling errors yanks me right out of the mood. It's such a distraction. I know they probably download a lot of lyrics from the internet, which is understandable.

But yes, I'm about one or two weeks away from leaving my name and number on a comment card and asking to volunteer as the church's official proofreader, for the bulletin and for the slides, if they'd have me.

The Real Deal said...

Deb - so you don't feel so alone: http://hekima.lionking.org/thestick/grammar.html

Strongbad actually sings a song about its vs. it's in one of his emails. Love it.

Mama Mia said...

hahahaha! I'm so with you, sis! It drives me batty to see these problems in the overheads (luckily, our church is fairly good about it, but every now and again...)

I think volunteering to fix it is a great idea! You have no idea how many people are probably bothered by it, but have no inclination to fix it. :o) Loves!

Kiti said...

So many good things have already been said here. I will just comment that the proper use of language is as chastity: If one is not already convinced of its importance, there are no arguments that will win that person over.

I put forth that language is part of the image of God, that sets humans apart from animals, and so respecting its usage denotes respect for our Creator and for His placing of us in creation. "God is great! Punctuate!"