National Grammar Day was March 4. Unfortunately, it was also National Procrastination Day.
Not really. I was just buried under work and couldn't manage to pull a decent blog post together in time. But that doesn't mean National Grammar Day wasn't in my heart.I tweeted plenty about grammar and editing that day. What's more, I participated in the National Grammar Day haiku contest.I submitted on Twitter . . . which I guess means I subtwitted . . . the following haiku:
If you've much to say,
A well-placed semicolon
Can save your big but.
In all, the judges (grammatical authorities all) received 176 grammar-related haiku that day. They combed through them, discussed them, argued over their favorites, launched a Fox program that let people eliminate haiku by voting for their favorites, and consulted a cross-eyed possum, and you know what? I came in second!
It was quite an honor. This is likely the only recognition that I will ever get for any form of poetry. Unless, of course, they run the same contest next year. (I'm hoping for grammar-day limericks!)
The winning haiku was submitted by Gord Roberts (@GordinaryWords):
Spell-checkers won't catch
You're mistaken homophones
Scattered hear and their.
Well-played, Gord. Well-played.
Find out more about the contest and the winners at Editor Mark's Blog. He went so far as to post all 176 entries.
Coming up: Another pseudo-holiday is fast approaching: April Fool's Day. On that day, I'll be participating in what Tony Noland is calling The Great April Fool's Day Friday Flash Blog Swap. (On Twitter, use the hashtag #GAFDFFBS; you can't fit the whole name in a single tweet.) I don't know how great it will be, but the rest of the title is pretty sound. All it really involves is writing a piece of flash fiction based on a prompt that Tony provided, and then "trading blogs" for a day -- I'll post someone else's flash fiction here, and that person will post mine on his or her blog.
So watch this space Friday for a fun bit of flash fiction that wasn't written by me!
