I read Strunk & White’s Elements of Style yearly, follow Grammar Girl’s podcasts religiously, and look up at least one grammar tip every day.

I correct grammar in my head when I listen to people talk (even in church, where I should really ignore the grammar and only focus on the message). I think LOLcats would be much funnier if they were grammatically correct. Or, yanno, even spelled correctly (some of the humor must be lost in the time it takes me to decipher what they say).

At least I am not the only one in the Carolinas using them...

I had been living in North Carolina* for around two months and was working for an interior decorating company. My partner, Cherrie, and I were trying to work in a single painting with the rest of the design (the owners wanted it prominently displayed, but it did not fit well with anything else they wanted in the house). After probably fifteen other suggestions, I turned and pointed to a spot where the stairs turned.

“We might could put it up there and make it work,” I said. And immediately paled.

Cherrie laughed the whole way home.

I have not been able to shake the use of double modals since. For a while I tried. I made a focused effort not to use them, and chastised myself every time I did. Having trained myself away from other instances of bad grammar, I was sure I could do so in this case.

But those darn double modals wouldn’t budge.

And you know what? I have come to like them. Love them even. They have become part of who I am and I use my double modals with pride (in speech at least, they kindly stay away from my writing).

Wait! No links today? Never.

Talking to people about YA, I often hear about The Vampire Craze. “Why are vampires so hot right now?” they ask, along with “When will we be over this whole vampire thing?” Slate.com has an interesting article on just that thing. So, before you blame Stephenie Meyer for our vampire obsession, head over and learn that  it is actually easier to pinpoint when we have not been in the midst of a vampire craze than to talk about when we have. Vampires have been here for a long time, folks, and it seems they are here to stay.

*I dream of living in the south again. Bubba is not swayed. For now, I make due by setting my novels in the south (which also allows me to used double modals in dialogue if I want).