Monday moan day

Not about life, you'll be glad to know, but once again about words and how they're increasingly being used. Or, in my book, abused.

First of all, I'm busy revising a teen novel intended for the North American audience. This means that I'm slaying 's's, in particular all those that go forwards and backwards and towards. These need to read forward, backward and toward. Why that is, I have no idea. Who decreed this to be standard usage? I note the trend in texts from the UK too, so have to think American colonialism is spreading ;-)

Another trend I've noticed while we're on this spot is the use of 'forward' instead of 'foreword'. I note that if I spell the latter without a middle 'e' my spell check changes to forward. Hey folks, the two are different.

So.

Now another usage that distresses me (chill, Brenda, chill) is the splitting of cannot into can not. It struck me that spell check might be the culprit, but it seems that isn't the case. Now I ask you, don't you think it's kind of contradictory when someone writes 'can' and then straight away 'not'?

Okay. Got that off my mind. To compensate for the rant, here's a cute story for you. My friend Heidi's mother, after living here for years, is still more German than Canadian.  Heidi taught her small dog a trick. She'd say 'Chill, Charlie, chill'. Whereupon he'd cast himself to the floor, and lie sideways and still. Wishing to replicate this, Heidi's mom commanded 'Freeze, Charlie freeze', complete with guttural 'r'. To her disappointment, Charlie only cocked his head and looked at her with a puzzled expression!