a quick english lesson: nouns and adjectives

alright, so i'm scrolling down my facebook updates, and what do i see but a former english teacher improperly modifying gerunds. she's a former (or possibly still current, i don't know) english teacher! for those of you who don't know what an english teacher is, it's someone who professes to teach children, or adults in some cases, how to speak and write english. for those of you who don't know what modify means, i'll save you the time of referencing dictionary.com and tell you. it means to change or edit the character of something else, or to qualify something with a certain characteristic. example: look at the dog. look at the red dog. here "red" modifies dog. get the picture? we move on... a gerund (i know many of you don't remember what that is, or you wouldn't so liberally modify them incorrectly) is a noun converted from a verb, such as "looking", "seeing", "spending", "punching". say two men are at the bar, the wife (who we'll subsequently refer to as angelina) of man no. 1 (who we'll subsequently refer to as billy) walks in, and billy smiles at his wife. his wife smiles back, but then a strange expression comes over her face as she notices man no. 2 (bob). billy looks over at bob who's oggling angelina. billy punches bob in the face, and bob exclaims, "HEY! what the hell is going on?" to which billy screams, "YOU looking at my wife is the problem!" bob then replies "NO! your punching me in the face is the problem!" see the difference here? billy's "you looking" employs one noun "you" to modify another noun "looking," and we all know that only adjectives can modify nouns. just ask your local high school english teacher... oh wait, nevermind. i wouldn't be explaining this if it were that simple, so just take my word for it. at any rate. bob has used the proper grammar, with an adjective "your" to modify the noun "punching."

let's just have a little practice. here are some common situations where you may have improperly modified your nouns.

1) you doing your homework is integral. --> improper

your doing your homework is integral. --> correct

2) you and me drinking this whole bottle of crown is a must! --> improper

our drinking... --> correct

your and my drinking --> correct

3) all i'm thinking about is me hitting up this shorty tonight! --> improper

all i'm thinking about is MY hitting up this shorty... --> correct

so there you have it. just a brief review of grammar. go out there and spread this newly re-found knowledge, and let us make this world a better place.

have you never heard of a phone book?

sooo... today i look in my school inbox to notice that i have a message, sent out to the listserv of a certain organization to which i belong. in said email, there's a message about something, something about" smartphones" and blah, blah "creepy" with a link to an online video. and i think to myself, "i have a smartphone. what kind of creepiness is going on out there?" but before i go to click on the link i have to go through a particular mental progression:

1) i hardly know this person who sent me this link

2) this link could be a phishing attempt

3) this person's account could be hacked

4) this person's account probably isn't hacked, as i received this email 4 hours ago, and no one has yet remarked upon it being a suspicious link.

with that being settled, i proceed to visit this online video, and here i am faced with a clown-sounding newscaster, talking about how pictures i could upload to the internet, taken from my smartphone, could be utilized to give any other internet user my exact location. now take a moment, because i now a lot of you out there are summarily missing the implications of such a statement, thus i shall repeat and explain. some one, could use a picture i posted online to find out where i am. a picture i sent to the internet from my smartphone (i.e. blackberry, iphone, droid) could clue someone in on where i am... someone could find me house, find where i work, find out where i take walks, find out my daily routine (because i just take that many pictures and upload them to the internet). someone could stalk me!

creepy, right? welllllll, not so much.

firstly, the pictures being uploaded, the examples from the news clip, were mainly twitpix from twitter. i have to say that i am not a participant in tweeting, nor do i follow anyone who does. maybe if facebook didn't exist... but that's a whole other story. so twitter. and i'm thinking, but i may be mistaken about this premise, but isn't the purpose of twitter to share one's information with the rest of the world? don't people log onto twitter every day and share little pieces of their lives with all the random strangers out there whom they don't know? even if that's not the case, there's the phone book. pause. many of the people who exist in today's information age, don't actually know what a phone book is, so let me explain, once again. a phone book is a book (big surprise, i know) that has everyone's name, phone number, AND address, listed alphabetically so it makes one easier to find. this phone book is organized geographically, people living close to one another being in the same phone book. it's usually a huge yellow tome delivered by a local phone company right to the doorsteps of everyone in any neighborhood. furthermore, in today's information age, it's all online, so not only does one have access to one's local neighbors but one's national neighbors as well. example: if i so chose, i could look up a steven johnson (if one existed) in san josé, california. WILD! not only can i be stalked using a phone book, but my entire neighborhood!

still, there are a couple of hedges i must make. one being that with the advent of prevalent cell phone usage, not as many people have house phones and are thus not in the phone book. my response to that is, i can just find you using your twitpix coordinates...