Are you a “wordie”? National Word Nerd Day was for you this week.

By Reba Hull Campbell

 

Are you a “wordie”? National Word Nerd Day was for you this week.

Wednesday was National Word Nerd day. This might not prompt the same reason for celebration as National Ice Cream Day or National Take Your Pet to Work Day for most folks. But for people like me, National Word Nerd Day was a chance to get your word freak on.

In anticipation of the celebration, I was reading back through some of my previous  posts about my pride in being a “wordie” (I think I like that description better than word nerd) – describing pet grammar peeves, writing poetry about my love of a purple pen or describing the joy of receiving a hand-written note. Who else but a dedicated wordie could write about the relationship between smoking a pork butt and writing?

A quick glance around my home and office illustrates it’s clear I qualify as a world class word nerd. Just a few examples:

• Your choice of clothes illustrates your word nerdiness. My “grammar police” t-shirt is always on the top of my t-shirt pile when I open my drawer. I have jewelry made from old typewriter keys, and I know the brand of typewriter.
• The most treasured possessions you keep on your desk scream word nerd. Mine is a mocked up copy of the ETV program guide the staff gave me when I left my job there many years ago. The cover art was a photo of me dressed up as the “Grammar Police.”

 

 

• You get your jollies from sharing funny newspaper typos and  cartoons with like-minded word nerds. I love the fact that this is a frequent topic of texts with my young adult goddaughter.
• You read the AP Stylebook for fun and make waves with its editor when you disagree with an entry. I recently raised a question about a particular entry in the 2017 edition of the Styleboook. I actually got a response from an editor noting my question was an issue worth considering. I’m anxiously awaiting release of the 2018 edition to see if the change got made.

 

 

• Your bookshelf is laden with old and out-of-date dictionaries, thesauruses, AP Stylebooks and books about writing, editing, writers and typewriters. I still have my eleventh and twelfth grade grammar books, plus my “Elements of Style” book from college freshman year.

 

 

• The topic of sentence diagramming is worthy of stopping the car to pay attention to a news story on the radio. This NPR story about diagramming sentences gave me a driveway moment this week.
• Your beach reading list includes a stack of word nerd books. This summer my list included “Between You and I,” “The Typewriter Revolution,” the new edition of “The Elements of Style” (which includes beautiful artwork), and a re-read of my old favorite “Woe is I.”

 

 

But I recognize just because I self-identify as a wordie doesn’t mean I don’t fall victim to my own typos and errors – that’s part of the territory. This is taped to my computer as a reminder. Sometimes I just get carried away with the words and don’t pay enough attention to the rules.

 

 

Fellow wordies, share your own word nerd stories!

 

When not working to promote the interests of SC cities and towns as deputy executive director of the Municipal Association of SC, Reba is passionate about travel, writing, learning to play the uke and keeping connected with old friends. Reba can be reached at [email protected] or through her blog at http://randomconnectpoints.blogspot.com. 

 

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