I can haz gud gramer.

I'm not sure I should type anything here, or say anything or talk about anything using the written word and or English language. Because apparently, I'm a moron!!

We have been tasked to take 2 training courses before the end of the year at work. We get to choose what we want to take out of a fairly broad curriculum. There really aren't many that actually relate to my job so I decided on some personal improvement courses.

The first one was on time management, and that was fine. Useful, even. But the second one? ARGH-H-H!!!

The second class was a basic grammar class. BASIC. I found as I was taking it, that not only did I not remember most of the rules, I was not learning them this time either! It just wasn't sinking in.

It started by asking about "Conjunction Junction" which should have been followed by "what's your major malfunction?" Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, those I'm good with. But for some reason when they got into pronouns my brain slammed shut. I don't remember nominative pronouns, or reflexive pronouns, or objective pronouns. Is it possible they were invented after I left school?

Oh, and I forgot possessive pronouns too. Although that one sounds vaguely familiar. How about idiomatic expressions, verb pairs, compound nouns, and "The basic rule for handling compound adjectives is to hyphenate the elements of the compound adjective when they occur before a noun. This is done because the words aren't in their normal order and therefore require hyphens to hold them together." Uh . . . if you say so.

I'm not confused about there, their, or they're, but yes, lay or lie, aggravate or irritate, imply or infer, there are a lot of things that trip me up. A lot.

I have "Grammar for Dummies" but I've never cracked it. I guess it's time. I may need to go back to grade school where we would spend a week on nouns, a week on verbs, etc. I may (may or might?) be able to speak (and write) properly by oh . . . 2012. Please stand by.

Thank you for your patience.

Voicemail, and English as a second language.

Out-sourcing. Not my favorite topic. But I'm not sure that's even what I'm talking about so it may be a moot point.

There was a voicemail on my phone at work today. I listened to it - or maybe I should say I tried to listen to it. A few sentences into the message I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it - like it was going to tell me something about what I was listening to.

It was funny. I couldn't help but laugh. I transferred the call to my co-worker asking if she could possibly translate. She listened to it several times, even replaying the first few sentences over and over because those were the least intelligible. We both laughed because it did not even sound anywhere close to a real language - much less English! She came up with "somebody died - and it had something to do with Polish sausage!" Beyond that - I was out of luck.

I never did figure out what the man was saying. I made out enough words - maybe 4 - but they were an important 4 - that the call was work related and probably in regard to some support I had requested. No idea what support, no idea what the problem was, who the message was from or why he was calling me. I deal with issues all day long. No clue which issue this was about.

He left a number to call him back but I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I knew I wouldn't be able to understand him. I also knew that if I did talk to him and heard anything remotely like Polish sausage and dying - I would have popped a vessel in my eye trying to hold back the laughter on the phone.

Which brings me back to out-sourcing. My company does it. Some. I am sure this was someone calling me from overseas to address an issue I had requested assistance with. Whether or not I agree with the concept of hiring people overseas for less money than an American worker would make in order to bump up the bottom line, I do have strong feelings I'm willing to express about one aspect of it.

Can we make sure the people we hire over in those other countries can at least speak English in a manner that is understandable by the average American?

PLEASE??

I live in the United States. It is where the company is based, it is where our clients are and where our employee's paychecks are coming from. I understand English is their second language and I do not blame them for not being able to speak it well. Hell - it's my FIRST language and I certainly don't!

But the people doing the hiring need to tighten up the qualifications for those jobs so at least we (meaning me) can understand them well enough to have a conversation with them!

All I could do was laugh and shrug my shoulders, knowing that tomorrow I will have to put some effort into which issue needs addressing. Tonight - all I could do was laugh about the deadly Polish sausage and it's ability to kill.

Because that's the closest thing to a translation that I had.