Columnist Busted for Drug Use

I used a drug a couple weeks ago and got busted for it. Before you start thinking, “I knew it! I always told you she was on something!” allow me to explain. It’s true that I used the drug while writing a column, but it wasn’t what you think. The drug I used wasn’t mind altering, though it would have been less shameful if it were. At least I would have had an excuse.

I didn’t send the drug up my nose, in a vein or pop it in my mouth. Instead I used the drug in the following sentence: “I drug my suitcase over to the ticket counter.”

A reader was kind enough to email and enlighten me of my grammar faux pas. “Drug has never been the past tense of drag.” Too right.

I’m afraid this isn’t my first offence and I’m pretty sure it won’t be my last. Several years ago I wrote about how we decided to get a boughten Christmas tree as opposed to chopping one down from our forest; the word “boughten” being a past participle of buy. I’m not the only one who says boughten to indicate something that isn’t home made, but knowing that still doesn’t make it a word. At least I didn’t say we drug the boughten tree home.

Another time I received a letter from Stickler’s Unite! A society inspired by the bestselling book Eats Shoots and Leaves. Their self imposed mandate, printed on their official looking business card, is to “preserve the pedantic peculiarities of our written language”. I was cited for gross misuse of the word “lied.”

In these days of instant communication the use of proper grammar, spelling and punctuation have become almost antiquated. It’s a phenomenon akin to elders in a tribe trying to keep the younger generation from losing their native language. No wonder people who care about syntax are getting so frustrated.

Some affectionately refer to the ones who care as the grammar police. Imagine if there really were grammar police. That would mean there would also be a grammar prison. Not only would I be busted, I would be incarcerated and sentenced to dictionary duty and forced to parse sentences until my linguistic knowledge deemed me fit for parole. However, if I committed so much as one measly dangling participle I could find myself back in the slammer just like that.
For a person who has never been in jail and has never had any plans for pursuing any type of criminal activity, I have spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking about my life in prison. If I were allowed a pad of paper, a pen and at least a dozen books I think I would be okay. Well, except for Big Bertha. I spend a lot of time thinking about how I would avoid Big Bertha.

It helps that I no longer smoke. I could get cigarettes from the outside and use them strictly for prison currency. Of course, this is assuming that the other prisoners – namely Big Bertha – do smoke.

Maybe there would be a prison vegetable garden I could work in. Not so I could buy off a non-smoking Bertha with new potatoes – though that is a possibility – but so I could go outside and get my hands in the dirt. I would miss my garden. Oh! And my family – of course I would miss my family too.

But at least they could come and visit me. It’s much more difficult for a garden to sit itself down on the other side of the Plexiglas and pick up a phone.

At the risk of sounding like the world’s worst mother, there were times when the boys were small and the day had been long that I even wondered if prison would be so bad. When you’re knee deep in screaming toddlers, dirty diapers and sporting a fresh tattoo from a piece of Lego in the bottom of your foot, the idea of being in a room all by yourself doesn’t sound like punishment. In fact, it might be nice to have someone else in charge of everything for a change. Not Big Bertha, but someone else.

Well I’ve dragged this column out long enough. Thanks for reading and a special thank you to those who take the time to write, even if it’s just to edit.