My friends refer to me as the "Grammar Nazi."  They're afraid to send me emails, for fear there will be a misspelling or grammatical error and I will cross them off my Christmas card list.  The emails I do get tend to have disclaimers at the top.  This is all my mother's fault, who began this whole thing with "I don't know.  CAN you?"  You may have heard this from your teachers at school when you asked, "Can I go to the bathroom?"  I got it much earlier.

Maybe it should be enough that I myself am ruined.  I should deal with the fact that I can't watch a television program without occasionally having to scream at the screen things like, "By WHOM, idiot!  Not by WHO!"  But it isn't enough.  I feel an obligation to share this neurosis with the world - at least the miniscule portion of the world that visits my site.

So here are a series of tips on grammar and usage.  It might take me a while to get all the rules knocked out onto the screen, so be patient, grasshopper.  Good grammar is worth the wait.