You ain't saying it right

An English professor who lives somewhere up north (New Hampshire I think) keeps sending emails complaining about my grammar.

"Your improper use of the English language is a disservice to your readers," he says. "Bad grammar is the mark of an uneducated mind."

You got that right professor. I ain't all that well educated. Might say my graduate and post-graduate work came at the school of real life instead of the ivory tower fantasy worlds where you live and work.

My first newspaper editor used to say "write like people talk. Don't try to impress me with big words and long, hard-to-understand sentences."

People don't talk like Shakespeare. They talk like people. And we the people don't say "he's a prevaricator." We say "he's a lying S.O.B."

And politicians don't talk like people neither. They use big words to hide the fact that, in most cases, they don't have the slightest damn idea what they're talking about (yeah, I know. Shouldn't end a sentence with "about." That's why I stuck this in here).

When a politician says "I'm re-evaluating my position," it really means "damn, you caught me in a lie and now I've got to come up with a new one." When the President of the United States says "we're making progress in Iraq" he really means "thank God, not as many Americans died there this week."

Professor, what you call "bad grammar" is what others call "colorful language."

Call it what you will. I call it the truth and that's the only language spoken here.