Local Teacher Says “That Darn Colon, Dash & Parenthesis Smiley Face is Grammatically Incorrect”

Jane Schmidt, a long-time English teacher in the Grafton School system, has a bone to pick with digital smiley faces. “It is not grammatically correct to have a colon -- or semi-colon for that matter, followed by a dash and closed parenthesis!” She holds up her tattered dog-eared copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style as she makes her case. “And another thing,” she said “texting is not a word...it sends me into a tizzy when I hear it” she said as veins pulsed in her neck. “Text cannot be made into a verb form no matter what Verizon says.” To make this point in class, Schmidt uses humor to get student’s attention by saying things like “I am totally Englishing on this” and “I am all about nouning.”

Ironically, Schmidt’s in-class antics are driving an underground language called “Schmidtish”, which is spreading across Worcester County. She is also writing a book on her teaching approach that unbeknownst to her could bring the English language as she knows it to a screeching halt among Grafton 11 to 15 year olds by 2011.