The Lost Art of Penmanship

I have fantastic penmanship.

I know this because every time someone sees something that I have written, they look at me and offer "you have really great writing, you know, for a guy." I don't even care that the literal translation of that sentence is "you write like a girl."

Writing and printing clearly isn't a difficult task and so it always strikes me as odd that so many people are baffled by my mastery of it. Yeah, I said mastery.

My brother Peter is to thank / blame. Back when we were little, before the days of PlayStations and computer games that kept track of your statistics for you, we did it longhand on ruled paper. Columns were made in red pen. Players names were written in blue ink. If it wasn't up to Pete's standards, I had to do it again.

It wasn't school that taught me good penmanship, it was my anal retentive brother's quest to make the statistics kept for the Kyte Brothers Mini Hockey League that made me write like a girl and I thank him for it.

Good penmanship would have gotten me home earlier last night.

The number three looks like this - 3.
It most certainly does not look like this - 5.

It took me double checking someone's math skills last night around 1:30 in the morning to realize that it wasn't their sums that sucked, but their ability to print numbers they learned in Grade 1 clearly.

For the record - their math skills sucked too, but that wasn't something for me to worry about that late at night and really, if you can't rock some simple mathematics at this point, you're hopeless to me anyway. Especially when you've got a calculator sitting right beside you.

To me, this is the same as speaking properly.

Books are available at the library, not the libary.
You may ask me whatever you like, but you cannot axe me anything, except wood for the fire.

You get the picture.

Scribble notes to yourself, but if your chicken scratch needs to be read by someone else, take two seconds to make sure that they aren't going to need to consult the Rosetta Stone to figure out what you're saying, m'kay?

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What Did You Say?

I've enjoyed my time out here, but I wouldn't say I loves it. I wouldn't say I hates it either. I wouldn't say either of those things because they are not grammatically correct and make my ears bleed every time someone says them.

My Ontario homecoming is less than two weeks away and while there are a number of people and things I am certainly going to miss, the frustrating bastardization of the English language is certainly not one of them.

Yes, everywhere has their own little dialect that produces strange contractions and slang, but nowhere on Earth is quite like Newfoundland.

If someone is victorious over another in a competition, what would you say he/she did? They beat you, right? Nope, not here. Here, they bet you. Seriously, bet.

What's the plural of you, used to describe a collection of people? It's you, no? No, it's yee. Yee, as in "Do yee have that movie?"

Adding an "s" to the end of things isn't unilaterally acceptable either, as in the loves and hates example that batted lead-off for this rant. It also doesn't work in the following forms:

• I gots that at home
• I wants to see that
• I eats there all the time

Like I said earlier, I understand and accept some of the regional slang and speech, in so far as it has been used so much around me that it doesn't have an impact on me any longer.

Yes B'y is now an acceptable positive response to a statement or question.

Whattaya At? - while I still have no idea how it means "What's Up?" - is commonplace and occasionally even rolls off my tongue from time to time.

Its cousin from out around the bay "Where Ya To?" however has never and will never be part of my lexicon, as no part of that phraseology conveys the idea of "Where are you?" to me.

And for those that are wondering, "out around the bay" is basically any place that isn't the City of St. John's. See, you either live in "The City" or "Out Around the Bay."

The unfortunate thing, and I say this with the utmost love and affection for my Newfie friends and readers, is that to "a Mainlander" like me, even the smartest person on the island sounds a little slow uttering some of these words and phrases.

Mind you, it's not your fault.

It's what yee were taught and yee had no say in what yee learns in school. Dats just how it is b'y.

Ah Newfie-isms... how I won't miss yee.

One last thing - it's a can of pop, not a can of drink. You don't ask for a glass of drink, you ask for a glass of something specific - juice, pop, water, booze, whatever. Not drink!

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