January 3, 2010


Please excuse my prose, I failed freshman composition four times. My chemical use may or may not have played a part (but that is another story...) The fourth time I failed the final was an "all or nothing" business memo. My English Professor told the class, "if you cannot write the perfect business memo, you cannot make it in the business world, therefore if your memo is not perfect, you will fail the class." Now I was a nontraditional student by this time (shocking I know, my senior year of college was the best fifteen years of my life) and had had the opportunity to be a part of the business world. Let's just say, that short of grunting and crayon's I had seen every type of memo and perfection was not what came to mind. Sure enough, my Professor called me into his office to inform me that he did not agree with a comma I had carelessly thrown into my business letter. He informed me that he could not in good conscience give me a passing grade. I strongly disagreed, but my pleas fell on deaf ears, and once again I failed English composition. I am not sure what this story has to do with my blog, but I did learn a great lesson that day. Rogue commas and dangling modifiers may actually have been the cause the great recession of 2008-09 and not hedge funds and the collapse of the housing market. Mr. Burnson was right all along, who knew......