I got a giggle out of the towels :o) My daughter's best friend recently spent a week with us and by Friday morning, I could not find a clean towel in the house. Every single towel in my house was on my daughter's bedroom floor. I swear they each took a shower 3 times a day and threw the towel on her bedroom floor afterwards!



>Agreed about picking our battles. I feel like I am biting my lip on an almost daily basis about little things like dirty dishes left all over the place, wet towels on the floor, etc. I didn't think of myself as particularly neat until two teenagers moved into the house full time. Some happy medium between spic-and-span and the spot of a recent hurricane would be nice <g>. Not worth battling over, though.
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>>I gave up on the battle with my 15 yr old over language long ago. I decided it was better for me to focus on the really important stuff rather than appear to be riding her nonstop over her language (which I would have to do considering her penchant for using the word 'like'). It has made our relationship alot more enjoyable. That doesn't mean that it doesn't drive me like absolutely crazy! :o)
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>>>>>>Thought of you the other day when I heard the following on the radio: "It's about one man's escape from Laos during Vietnam."
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>>>>>Um... can't see how it relates to me, except the grammar thingy. Though, usage of "Vietnam" as a temporal adverb used to be quite common. We quite commonly say "during Sloba" - so I probably would not even notice anything wrong in that sentence.
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>>>>Yeah, it was the grammar. I figured you'd go to town on that one.
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>>>I am sometimes pedantic about language -- well, not as pedantic as SOME here <g> -- and read something on the train this morning that may have changed my mind. It was the "On Language" column in the NY Times Sunday Magazine and was written by a guest columnist (William Safire is on vacation). It was about the new usage of the word "like," which will be familiar to most of us who spend any amount of time around teenagers. "I was like, We don't want to get there that early, and she was like, But if we aren't they'll start without us, and I was like...." I razz Emily constantly about this one and have been trying to break her of it. The columnist's position, though, was that it really isn't that bad, just a typical permutation of the always-changing English language. She added that most of those who use "like" in this way -- who are not all teenagers, she asserts -- know the difference between proper written language and casual spoken language. She said "like" has not yet made
>>>significant inroads into written English.
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>>>Do you have any, like, thoughts on this issue? <g>