The former English major in me cringes at some of the things I hear others ( and myself ) say but recently my dear cousin, Linda, sent me something about keeping your tenses straight and having no compunctions at all about using what people tell me here, I pass it on. She wrote that "worry is future tense" and that "guilt is past tense". A simple but profound concept and a good thing to keep in mind.
If only life were as clear and as uncomplicated as the rules of grammar. We would all have a plan based on never ending a sentence with a preposition, knowing that an adjective modifies a noun and an adverb modifies an adjective,and that it's "i before e exept after c". There would be no gray areas, no emotional quagmires, no moral dilemmas, no tricky intersections, just a straighforward two lane highway.
How clear. How simple. How reassuring. How dull.
I like the fact that I have to stop and think before I can remember what the difference is between a metaphor and a similie but I can generally keep my tenses straight by staying in the present.
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