I does NOT take an apostrophe

In my job at TCC, I have some (culinary, for the most part) students for whom I provide the first real introduction to standard English grammar. While most undoubtedly had grammar in high school, their memories of the rules are sparse at best. With that understanding, I had them write an introductory essay answering such questions as who they are, where they come from and what drives them so I could get an insight into where they needed the most pressing grammar instructions. The essays displayed a lot of expected issues that ran the gamut from comma confusion, to subject/verb issues to the tried but true seriously strangled sentence syndrome.

One individual began his less predictable essay like this:

“Me, I’ am Bobby Jones the second and…” Bobby does one of the things so many who fear the apostrophe do - put them wherever he thinks they MAY go, with putting apostrophes nowhere being the other. That one stumped me though, as I had NEVER seen anyone try to pin an apostrophe on an I before. At least he capitalized the I, I told myself.

To explain possessive nouns this past week, I brought out my well-loved copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves and told them the story of the Two Weeks Notice opening in London where Lynn Truss showed up and asked people to properly insert the apostrophe. Notice there’s no apostrophe? Hollywood needs an English teacher.

For Better or Worse this week has a lovely classroom moment with grammar. Last week, students told me they thought learning grammar was useless and that they couldn’t give a rat’s ass about “the stuff”. Fortunately, there are many others in the class who do care, pay attention, DO THEIR HOMEWORK and ask relevant questions in a clear effort to learn. I try to focus on the students who want to be there, but some who fall in the other category are giving me pause.

Two of the less mature students are a pair of brothers in their early twenties. Brad, the elder of the two, is a cutup who likes to be the joker in the room. He rarely does his work, always has a wise ass remark to share and, due to his ADHD, needs to use his headphones during computer work. I have allowed his headphones under the stipulation that during classroom time, he is paying attention.

Well, every person you know,
And every place that you can go,
And anything that you can show,
You know they’re nouns…

Last Thursday I attempted to show the students “A Noun is a person, place or thing.” For whatever reason, every device I attempted to use declined to support my intention, so there was a lag period while the IT guy and I attempted to overcome technical difficulties. Brad and a similarly attentive buddy instantly got up and headed out to smoke. Sam, a new female student to my class with the same nicotine addiction, followed them and when she returned, was visibly angry. While the two male students went into another room, Sam relayed what Brad had been saying while he was outside. Apparently, Brad said he needs some serious action (which he described in some graphic detail) every other day at least and considers himself an amateur porn star because he loves to film himself in a variety of acts. This lady is no shrinking violet and knows her way around trashy talk. This, she said, was deliberately offensive, and she was disgusted by him.

How much of this is male posturing is beside the point; this young man, goateed and tattooed, is pursuing a professional culinary degree. His behavior in class and his actions on his off time clearly demonstrate a serious lack of good sense and self-destructive behavior. At the end of class, I gathered my things and still fuming, decided to speak with the Dean about this pair. Mere moments after hearing their name, she smiled and said she knew all about the boys in question. This is, by the way, two weeks into the semester!

She said she would speak to the one person whose word quakes the blood of all in his presence: the head chef. The Chef does not tolerate tardiness - 30 seconds and the offender can go home for the day and if any disrespectful behavior occurs on the part of the chef-to-be, woe unto the wretched individual in question. The Dean assured me that the Chef would help Brad see the error of his ways. If not, there’s always duct tape…