how to write good
Some of you have stopped and asked me various questions about my budding side-hobby as a humor writer, questions such as “How does one become a writer?” and “When is the right time to use parentheses?” (hint: Shazam – right here) and “Why are you digging through my trash?”
I’m here to help you gain a more fantastic grasp, a fantasticker grasp, of the English language. If you just follow these principles, you will be on your way to composing amazing, successful, orgasmic grammar.
Whoever vs. whomever
This seems like a tricky subject but it is actually quite simple. You say “whoever” in reference to a person who is the nonspecific subject of your sentence, as in “Whoever ate my last cookie deserves to get incurable itchy butthole worms.”
There is never a correct time to use “whomever.” It is a made-up word, and if you speak it aloud you look like a real turd.
Letter Writing
In the address of your letter, the phrase “To whom it may concern” is much too formal and anonymous. Your reader will digest this line as “I am not smart enough to know who I’m writing to, so I want you, Mr. or Mrs. Stranger, to make the effort and drop this off with the right person.” It is actually less offensive to start your letter with “Hey you with the fat face.”
A more effective approach is, if you can’t find the person’s name, to use that person’s title. For example, you can begin a letter with “To the district director of research for hamster mating rituals” or “To the cute girl on the bus who guffaws like an old man when you sneeze.”
A good way to end a letter is “Sincerely,” but “Get ‘er Done” and “True Dat” carry more impact. It is usually inappropriate to color in all the loops in each lower case “e” or to draw cool spiderweb designs in the margins on your letter prior to sending. This is only considered acceptable behavior if you are stuck in a meeting or on the phone.
Semicolons
Semi means “half”, and colon means “ass.” Just start a new sentence.
Acronyms
Everybody stop it with all the acronyms. You might think it saves time, but your reader or listener still has to stop and figure out what the heck you’re talking about. It took me half a CSI episode (also an acronym) to figure out what “G.S.W.” meant, and then I was irritated to realize that “gun shot wound” requires two less syllables to say than its abbreviation.
I sent an email to a coworker, and she replied “LOL”, but she sits 10 feet away and I didn’t hear her laugh. Either she is a quiet laugher or she misrepresented her response for my benefit. I think “LOL” has been so overused that it now actually means “that thing you said mildly amused me” or “I barely cracked a grin.” Now we have much more exciting acronyms to represent actual laughter. For example, “ROFL” means “rolling on the floor laughing” and “ILSHIPAL” means “I laughed so hard I peed a little.”