Reasoning With Vampires - Edited With An Intro

Edited: So, I actually had second thoughts about putting up this post. As Danyelle succintly puts it in the comments, bashing of any kind isn't ever okay. I had prescheduled this post a while ago, and had been planning to log in and change it, only didn't, and woke up this morning intending to do it - and karma decided to teach me a lesson, because the internet broke. It's still broken. I'm only here right now by magic.

I'm going to leave the post be for now, though, for a few reasons. Partly, because anyone who reads this blog regularly will have already seen the post. But mostly, because I stand by the reason I first posted this link: it IS a great way to learn grammar. I'm a high school English teacher AND a writer, and I'm pretty darned good at English. But there's two things I know for sure: one, my grammar is far from flawless; and two, kids as a general rule find grammar either really hard or really boring to learn about - or both. And there's nothing like seeing real life examples from texts that kids will actually find engaging to help the grammar sink in.

I don't think author or book bashing is particularly cool. I have nothing against Meyer or really, even the Twilight series. Look, it gets people reading, okay? Like some important people related to me, who didn't really Do the whole 'reading thing' until Twilight happened upon them. Yay! Reading! Reading is awesome.

With a caveat: saying that it doesn't matter what we read, so long as we're reading, is like saying it doesn't matter what we're eating, as long as we're eating. It's pretty obvious that that's not true. I don't think Twilight sets a fantastic example for young people, and this is a pretty touchy issue for me, personally. But if other people want to read it, I'm not going to try to stop them.

Heck, even I will read it one day - I'm not adverse to the idea, I just need to get my own TBR pile down to a more manageable level first o.O

And finally, in defence of the author of the site, I think it's worth pointing out that while she starting the site as Twilight-bashing, the reason she's continued it (going through the entire series) is because of the letters she gets from people telling her essentially what I've said above: it's made grammar palatable for them, they've learned something from it, etc etc.

I stand by what I said below: abusive relationships are not cool, regardless of how they are framed. I apologise for any offence caused; that was not my intent, nor was it my intent to participate in 'author-bashing'. I hope you'll all take the post in the spirit it was originally intended - or, as always, feel free to totally ignore me - or, you know, pick up on all my grammatical errors and thematic inconsistencies and point them out for people to laugh at. Either way. O:)

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Because we all need something else to procrastinate with, and really, why not learn all about grammar while you do? Note that there is a LANGUAGE WARNING for this site.

I give you Reasoning with Vampires, wherein site author Dana dissects the grammar of the Twilight Saga. Bwa ha.*



* No, haven't read them. Yes, still dislike them. No, not really for the mechanics; if you want to write like that, meh, go for it. Some of my favourite authors EVER, in fact, use terrible grammar/punctuation/general writing techniques. I dislike the premise more for the fact that Edward is not, in fact, a romantic boyfriend but is rather and instead a creepy stalker-pire. Srsly. Their relationship? NOT. COOL.**

** And if anyone EVER tries to convince me it's okay because "they love each other so much they can't help it", I will commit homicide. We are humans, not guineapigs***. By definition, therefore, we have control over our emotions.****

*** Who go at it more than rabbits, incidentally, and have none of that pesky incest-taboo to worry about like humans o.O

**** Yes, even strong ones. Really.