Writing Helper: Just Thinking to Myself
This is part of the series:
- Grammar Helper
- Grammar Helper: Ensure, Assure, Insure
- Grammar Helper: There, Their, They're
- Grammar Helper: Appraise vs. Apprise
- Grammar Helper: Idea vs. Ideal
- Grammar Helper: Commas in a series
- Grammar Helper: Who and Whom (simple version)
- Grammar Helper: I vs. Me
- Writing Help: Who's vs. Whose
- Writing Helper: Just Thinking to Myself
- Writing Helper: Poor and Pour, Then and Than
- Grammar Helper: Its vs It's
- Writing Helper: Breath vs. Breathe, Bath vs. Bathe
- Cite, sight and site
- Writing Helper: Stationary vs. Stationery
- Writing Helper: Lose vs. Loose
- Avoiding the Passive Voice
- Possessive vs. Plural: Getting it Right
- Writing Helper: A lot
- Writing Helper: Bath vs Bathe
- Writing Helper: Choose vs Chose
- Writing Helper: Idea vs. Ideal
Once upon a time, I taught first year college English. I also taught what my students not-so-fondly called “bonehead English,” which was a grammar and remedial writing class. I still chuckle over one particularly funny exchange with a student. Maybe it’s also a pretty good indication I wasn’t cut out to teach.
I had marked up her paper pretty badly, but it read like she wrote it in the car, while driving, running late for class. When she approached me after class, flapping the notebook paper at her side, I knew she was already ticked off.
“You marked something that wasn’t wrong.” She dropped the offending paper on the table between us and pointed to one of many marks. “See?”
I didn’t see. To tell the truth, I couldn’t figure out which of the marks she meant. “Where?”
“Here.” She pointed again, this time to the phrase, “I was thinking to myself.” I had marked out “to myself” and had written the word “redundant” in the margin.
I explained that it was, in fact, redundant to say that you think to yourself. You can’t think to anyone else, so it really isn’t necessary to specify you’re thinking to yourself.
She pointed out again how wrong I was, that she had really been thinking to herself in the situation in question.
I didn’t doubt that. Despite all the red marks, she seemed pretty thoughtful in general. I bet she did it several times a day.
I explained again why there’s no need to add “to myself.” I explained that if she could think to others too, then it might be necessary to be specific, but since any time she thinks, it must, by necessity, be “to herself,” there’s no need to say so.
We repeated this conversation until we were both out of patience. I finally asked. “Are you telepathic?”
That shut her up. She looked at me like I sprouted a third eye on my second head (thanks for the expression, Will!). “HUH?”
“Are you telepathic? If so, then yes, you should have written it as you did. If not, then you’re wrong. Okay?”
I think she left just to go look up “telepathic.”
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