Apr. 4th 2012
I had a talk the other day with a former student. The subject: jacked up spelling and grammar wrecks on Facebook, making otherwise smart people look and sound, well, less smart.
She inspired me to post these simple grammar/English reminders. If one of your Facebook friends would benefit from this, just share it. You don’t have to mention their name(s) when you post it. You don’t have to say, “Hey BOB, read this, you bowlegged grammar clown!” Poor Bob doesn’t need to hear that.
Should you try to correct your friend’s grammar directly?
Only if you want to alienate him or her, piss him or her off, and make YOU look like a big ol’ grammar a-hole. No one likes a smart-ace, and ain’t nobody likin’ a grammar a-hole smart-ace.
Just share this little post and maybe your friend will hear their voice in it and say, “wow, I wonder if I could use a little grammar makeover?”
1. Plural subjects need plural verbs. Singular subjects, singular verbs. “Those boys are acting like fools.” “That chick is not right.” “They love bacon.” “He loves crack.”
2. “Your” is possessive. “Your ex-girlfriend radiates crazy!” “You’re” means “you are,” as in “you are incredible!” Today I saw someone post this on Facebook: “I think your awesome.” Your awesome WHAT?
3. “They” is a third person plural pronoun. They look like zombies. “They’re” is “they are,” as in “they were the droids you were looking for.” “Their” is a possessive pronoun as in “their tacos are nasty.” (Oh, and quotation marks go outside the punctuation that ends the sentence in almost every case.)
4. “Too” is a mater of degree, and “to” is part of an infinitive verb or shows direction. As in “it’s too noisy in here to hear what you’re saying to me.”
5. Add an apostrophe and an “s” to form the possessive of a singular noun. “John Calapari’s favorite word is ‘vacate.’” However, all bets are off with “it” and “your.” And there is no such word as “your’s.” Just like “irregardless” isn’t a word either. To form the possessive of it and your, you just add an “s.” But “it’s a beautiful day for Kansas to beat Kentucky” is a perfect sentence with perfect grammar!
6. Her and him and me aren’t subjects, well, except in this sentence. hahaha You would never say, “her is here” or “him got mad at Jill,” or “me ate at Burger King.” “Her and I ate hot dogs” won’t work either. If those personal pronouns give you fits or seem confusing, just use the person’s proper name, like “Brenda and I stalked John’s new girlfriend, that skank,” or replace it with “we.”
Here’s the test, if you can remove the “and I” or the “and me” and it still makes sense, you’re okay! “Him and I went to the game” might not seem obviously jacked up, but when you take out the “and I” and it becomes “him went to the game,” everyone, even good ol’ boys from Arkansas, knows that ain’t rite!
7. Have, had, has, are helping verbs that trip up a lot of people. “Have went” is so wrong it ought to be on the FBI’s least wanted list. And additionally, “I seen him yesterday” is equally awful! Arkansas boys sometimes like to make it sound fancy by saying, “I seent him yesterday.”
8. And double negatives are like fingernails across my face. “I ain’t never not read no book that wasn’t no good.”
9. There are, in fact, some sentences for which propositions may end. “What are you here for” is much better than “for what are you here” even though the first ends with a proposition. Like the time when my girlfriend’s dad said to me at his front door, “what are you here for?” I didn’t point out his prepositional dilemma.
Anyway, ending a sentence with “at” is never acceptable. “Where is the party at?” Doesn’t matter, dude, you’re not going. Maybe you’ve seen the birthday card that has two girls on the front. Girl #1 says to the other: “Where’s the party at?” Girl #2 says, “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” And then you open the card and find that girl #1 says, “Sorry. Where’s the party at, BITCH?!!” hahaha
10. “The effect of too much cologne will affect your dating prospects.” So then, “effect” is a noun and “affect” is a verb.
Well, that’s enough grammar talk. Except to say that if something is loose, it’s about to fall off and if you lose, well, you prolly didn’t win. (When did “probably” become “prolly?” Sounds like something a teenaged Kardashian or Paris Hilton would say.) Oh, one more thing. You graduate from something, since graduate is a transitive verb and doesn’t take an object. So, “it took Bob nine years to graduate college” is not only wrong, it’s just really sad for Bob.
Everyjuan rakes mistokes in schpilling and graummer. Me encluded. Know one’s perfeck.
But more and more, especially in a competitive economy, a person’s speaking and writing skills reflect something of the person. And that reflection ought to be the most flattering reflection possible, particularly if a prospective employer, client, or date is sizing you up by stalking your Facebook page!
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THE GOOFY CHALLENGE
Would you be interested in running The Goofy Challenge in January 2013?
What is The Goofy Challenge? It’s part of the Disney Marathon Weekend at Disney World, Orlando.
You can run the half marathon on Saturday.
Or you can run the full marathon on Sunday.
OR … you can run ‘em both, The Goofy Challenge!
I did this in 2009 and am in the preliminary stages of forming a training group for the next Challenge.
Following are two links. The first one is the Disney link with all of the registration info and so forth. The second link is to Boot Camper, and Goofy Challenge Finisher, Margaret Caffey’s travel website. Margaret is an Independent Vacation Planner with MEI-Travel & Mouse Fan Travel, specializing in Disney Destinations.
Using Margaret to plan your trip to Disney is FREE and no one knows Disney like she does!!! She can give you rate information for the costs of your trip to Orlando for the Challenge.
http://espnwwos.disney.go.com/events/rundisney/wdw-marathon/
https://www.facebook.com/MouseFanMargaret/info
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I posted this on Facebook and mentioned this in class last week, but just in case you missed it …
I had my annual physical last week. It’s the one I have every year. 
In addition to being in perfect health, my doc showed me a couple of areas where I scored in the 19 to 24 year old men range! And NO, it was not in “maturity”! The secret: Live well, eat smart, move your ass … and the rest of you will follow! If you haven’t scheduled your physical, do that today!
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(Repeated by popular demand.)
Healthy Muscle, Healthy You
by Ashley Hofeditz, RD, LDN
If you run on a regular basis, your body thanks you. Running and other forms of aerobic exercise offers many health benefits such as increased cardiovascular health, improved bone health, and it can even boost your mood.
To have the best physical health however, you need to make sure that your body is packed with muscle. Muscle makes up about 75 percent of your lean body mass. Lean body mass also includes your organs, bones, tissue, and skin.
Unfortunately, the amount of muscle mass you have declines with age. Your peak muscle mass is around age 30. By age 40, you lose about 8% of your muscle every ten years and around 70 years of age, this loss accelerates to approximately a 15% loss of muscle every ten years! The reason we all lose muscle as we age is due to decreases in protein synthesis (the process in which cells build proteins). Healthy college age males lose about 2% of their muscle mass when confined to a bed for 28 days, healthy elderly people lose about 10%, but amazingly, it only takes them ten days to lose it!
If you become ill or injured in some way, you also can lose muscle very very quickly. This is due to an increase in metabolism and an increase in muscle breakdown. The combination of being elderly and being ill is even more devastating to your muscles. Elderly hospitalized patients can lose 10% or more of their muscle in only three days time! This can have devastating consequences. Losing just 10% of your muscle leads to decreased immunity and increased risk of infection. The more muscle mass you lose, the worse it is.
Losing muscle and lean body mass leads to:
- the inability to heal and recover from surgery, illness or disease
- Decreased strength and energy
- Loss of independence
- Increased risk of falls and fractures
- Weakened immune system and increased risk of infections
- Impaired healing
- Weakness/fatigue
- Increased susceptibility to illness
- Decreased quality of life
To maintain and build as muscle you need to perform weight bearing exercises a minimum of 2-3 days a week such as USMC Fitness Boot Camp. But you need to have good nutrition plan. Nutritionally, to help preserve and build muscle mass some dietary manipulations of protein- quality, quantity, and distribution should be made.
In order to prevent age related muscle loss it is recommended that you eat approximately 90 grams (or about 12 ounces of meat a day). The type of protein should be high quality protein such as meat, milk, poultry, and fish. Some experts recommend that protein needs to be consumed in a more equal distribution throughout the day in order to benefit from maximal protein synthesis or building at each meal. Studies show that it takes about 25-30 grams of high quality protein three times a day to result in the highest protein-building rate. In regular terms this means you need to eat about 3-4 ounces of meat at each meal, or consume other foods that contain protein such as yogurt, milk, beans, etc. to help you meet your goal
Strength Training exercises and nutrition play a key role in helping you maintain and build lean body mass. Remember, having healthy muscles equals a healthier you!
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ARE WE FACEBOOK FRIENDS?
We should be!
HAVE YOU “LIKED” THE USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP FACEBOOK PAGE?
You should totally do that!
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A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
This is just a gentle reminder that we all have different tolerances to smells and fragrances.
While B.O. might be bad (wash those nasty workout clothes!) strong perfume or cologne can be worse!
I once quit dating a girl in high school because she wore Secret Powder deodorant. I should have just told her that her deodorant was the most horrible thing ever and that it made me gag. But I was young and it just seemed easier to break up with her than to hurt her feelings about her deodorant. What? I know. I was young and all. But to this day, Secret Powder is a deal breaker!
I’ve run races before where I’ve literally sped up to pass someone simply because their perfume or cologne made it hard for me to breathe running behind them.
What smells nice to one person, won’t smell nice to another. So may I remind everyone that the Quarterdeck is a “fragrance free zone.” Soap and water are great, but perfume and cologne are going to be too overpowering for the lungs of people exercising and breathing heavy.
Thanks everyone!
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TUESDAY / THURSDAY EVENING CLASS
The Tues/Thurs evening track runs are back! We’re running at St. Mary’s School track at 5:45pm. (St. Mary’s track is behind the school/church at Walnut Grove and Perkins)
Running the track, speed work, and running in the neighborhood are options! None of the above are requirements and you are free to do your own thing. I’ll be glad to give you an assignment based on your running goals and experience!
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SPRING HALF MARATHON!
Our next training run is this Saturday at 7 AM. We’ll meet at Shelby Farms in front of the Visitor’s Center. Saturday’s weather is expected to be good! But if it’s raining we’ll go on Sunday instead.
Wanna get your one hour of continuous cardio with a group? You can join us! We’ll be going 1 hours 40 min on Saturday, passing through the Visitor’s Center parking lot every 25 to 30 minutes. You can hop on-board!
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BOGA tomorrow morning at 5:30am – No chanting. No patchouli.
M-16 Workout at CUMC next Tuesday, April 10 at 5:30am!
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NEW BOOT CAMP DISCOUNT
If you set up an automatic payment at your bank (Boot Camp mailing address is 4888 Southern, Memphis 38117) you can subtract $10 off your fee! That’s right, instead of $75, you can pay $65!
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USMC FITNESS BOOT CAMP CLASSES
0530 Monday through Friday
0645 M-W-F
0830 M-W-F
5:45 PM: Monday and Wednesday, and 5:30 PM on Friday. (Tues/Thurs – track runs)
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BOOT CAMP DISCOUNTS AND FACEBOOK EXPERIMENT!
First of all, find me on Facebook and make me your friend. (Also, be sure to “like” USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP on Facebook.)
Here’s how the discount works!
It’s simple: make a Facebook status update and get a discount!
For every status update that you make that references:
“USMC Fitness Boot Camp,”
“Sgt. Tony’s Boot Camp,”
“Tony’s Boot Camp,”
or something similar, you can take $2.50 off your next reenlistment fee for each update!
You can take up to $20 off for any given month!
Your status update has to be a specific reference to USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP or to me specifically by name.
BE SURE TO TAG ME!
You can do the same thing by “checking in” at USMC Fitness Boot Camp either by using Facebook “places,” Foursquare, or any of the other “check in” apps that show up on your Facebook News Feed.
So log on and start getting your discounts now!
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FREE MONTH OF BOOT CAMP FOR YOU!
Remember that when one of your family or friends joins the program at full price because of your recruiting efforts, YOU get a free month of Boot Camp!
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THE 0830 AND THE 0645 CLASSES!!
The 0830 Class meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Don’t forget that there is child-care available at the church for this class!
ATTENTION 0830 CLASS MEMBERS: please remember that no cell phone usage is allowed while you drive your car on the campus. So when you pull onto the campus, no cell phones please!
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PARKING AT CHRIST METHODIST
No change for the 0530 class.
0645: If you could park on the side of the building – not in the handicapped spaces, that would be great. And since we’re outside now, the parking spaces between the playground and the athletic fields would be ideal. Thanks!
Evening Class: On Wednesday evening, if you could park west of the Quarterdeck in between the Quarterdeck and the athletic field, that would be great.
Thanks everyone for your cooperation. Even though I pay the church a facilities usage fee for us to be on the campus, it would be helpful to them if we parked in areas that don’t interfere with their other ministries and activities.
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WANT TO LOSE 20 POUNDS BY THE END OF NEXT MONTH?
Take Shape For Life is the BEST weight loss program I know of. If you’d like to lose weight talk to me. This is the program I used to lose the almost 30 pounds I gained after knee surgery. Let me help you!
You can also go to www.combatchallenge.tsfl.com/
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CALENDAR
A calendar has been added to the official USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP website.
http://www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com/calendar.html
For you visual learners, you’ll find this an easy way to glance at the week or month and see where the workouts will be, if there’s a venue change.
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What would you do if money was not an issue, fear was not a factor, and failure was not an option?
To your optimum health and fitness!
SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK!
Tony
Sergeant Major Tony Ludlow
USMC Fitness BOOT CAMP, Commanding
Mailing address: 4888 Southern Ave., Memphis, TN 38117
Cell Phone: 901-644-0145
