Grammar is not a relative!

The correct usage of the English language does not seem to occupy much of the average high school student's time.  There are people with multiple degrees from accredited Universities that do not have a sniff about grammar, and don't give a Tinker's damn that they don't.  With the computer/cell phone age almost everyone is familiar with LOL and BTW and OMG and maybe even LDMDA (Lori Dawn Marie Deschene Allard - inside joke - don't even try).  So, I have decided to use my blog for good, not evil, and make a couple of points in favour of proper usage of the English Language.

Recently a document hit my desk, from a higher up in Regina (pick any person in Regina, they are higher up than me), which had this rather cryptic note on a post-it stuck on the front page.  "File in Fort QuAppelle".  File in Fort QuAppelle - what???  Where???  Why??? Into which of the roughly 40 file cabinets representing 10 different disciplines of health care and about 2 levels of administration would this document go?  And these are just loose pieces of paper clipped together, shouldn't they at least be given the dignity of a freakin' file folder???!!.  And then, slowly, one synapse after another, the brain cells began to ignite with realization.  File, in this case was not a VERB, but rather, it was a NOUN.  What this rather terse little note meant was that There is a file in Fort QuAppelle in which this document belongs.  Now I still had to question about 15 people before I located said file, and added the documents to it, but once I understood what the note meant, I was much further along in completing the task assigned.  Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am not succinct and no fan of brevity so there was no way this higher up could win with me, but really, just a little more information and I would have grasped the meaning so much sooner.  You don't just toss out a noun without a definite article or two to go with it!  A complete sentence would have been much better.

I think that there are a few people old enough to remember the days when TEXT was a noun.  It could be an adjective, as in Text book, for example, but for the most part, text was a noun pure and simple.  Now, of course, it is rarely used as a noun.  I will text you.  I am texting. In fact, I can think of no other time when the word text is used as a noun except when it refers to the result of the action of texting, as in did you get my text?   So this has become the widely accepted use of the word, and I am not starting a campaign to complain about it or anything like that.  But I do have a question, to which I would love an answer.  If one does this action in the past has one texted someone?  As LDMDA would say, "this can go on the pile of things that make you go hmmmm????"

/bye