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She might have thought you were using the possessive as an example, because only a Mormon has "mothers-in-law".
I have heard women who have been divorced and remarried refer to their mothers-in-law, as in "I invited both of my mothers-in-law over for dinner." Also, when speaking to a group of women, as in, "Ladies, please be sure to bring your mothers and your mothers-in-law to the style show."
Here is a true story from work. I was training a new employee on using medical testing equipment in our office. I told her to enter the patient data, including name, date of birth, etc. before beginning the test. Then when the test results print out the data appears on the results page.
When she started bringing the test result pages to me I noticed that she was typing their names in lower case. I went back to her and explained that these results become part of the patient's medical record, so proper capitalization is necessary.
So then she started typing the data in all caps. I went back to her again, and she actually didn't understand what I meant by "proper capitalization."
So then she started typing the data in all caps. I went back to her again, and she actually didn't understand what I meant by "proper capitalization."
If you think that is bad, you should have dealt with some of the high schoolers whom I counseled. Their ability to communicate in written form was...not good.
One of the most memorable faux pas that I had to unravel over the telephone with Educational Testing Service was the case of the girl who failed to leave spaces between her first name, middle name, and last name, and between the house number and the street name when she filled out the registration form for the SAT. Unless all information conforms from one test date to another, ETS cannot link your various test results into one coherent test record. I think that I spent close to an hour on the phone with ETS as a result of that problem.
And, as you might be able to guess, she never thanked me for doing this for her.
When I pointed out these problems on her test admission ticket, and explained that all of this information had to be corrected, the girl's reaction to the problem was..."What's the big deal?"
However, some of the adults on the staff were not much better. My department head, from whom I took orders, used to address her letters of recommendation for students applying to Rutgers University to Rutger's University. My favorites among her written directives included her reminders to be careful to use the correct numerical codes regarding, "ethnicicity", when we registered new students. When referring to students who ran in gangs, she used to say, "He is of that ink", rather than, "He is of that ilk".
And yet, she considered herself to be quite the intellectual...while she read her Barbara Cartland novels.
Last edited by Retriever; 12-20-2012 at 01:12 PM..
Yet another person who is proud to display his/her limited literacy...
Mod cut: copyrighted image.
Tattoo says "Never Forget God Isint Finished with me Yet"
I'm just not sure whether I prefer the..."creative"...spelling, or if I prefer the capitalization of random words, but this masterpiece of a tattoo is surely something worth displaying to the world--if you want everyone to know that you didn't complete third grade.
I recently received some paperwork from a legal office that had three misspelled (really two misspelled and one misused) words on the first page. I made an extra copy, signed one and used my red pencil on the other before returning them. Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.
I just remembered my high school teacher (an ENGLISH teacher, in fact) who frequently used the term "take it for granite." No one ever dared correct her. Then there was my co-worker (also an ENGLISH teacher) who had good 'ideals' on a regular basis.
Last edited by GayleTX; 12-22-2012 at 05:04 PM..
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