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Mark Wieting
Okay, my turn. Thanks for all the resonses.
My choice is my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Williams--can't remember her first name. Ginny, or others in that class at Hammerschmidt, can you?
She gets my vote because she taught me the elements of the English language that have stood me well throughout my academic and business careers. She taught us about case--not "it was a surprise to you and I" but, rather "to you and me." Yes, prepositions demand the objective case. Nominatives name things--unless the nominative is a pronoun--and act as the subject of a verb. Oooh, passive verbs. She taught us to diagram sentences so we could see how they could be put together properly. She taught us the three moods, yes moods: indicative, imperative and subjunctive. From age 12 on, I never was uncomfortable saying, "If I were you" instead of "If was you." I don't remember, specifically, if she taught the proper uses of "lie" and "lay," but probably so. Nit picker that I can sometimes be, I once wrote an email to a Tribune reporter who had written, "The gun was laying on the front seat in plain view." I asked, "What was it laying--eggs?" These things matter--if you get paid for writing. It's not a generic trait; my college-educated child recalled to me that he had been "laying in the grass because the sun was so warm." And does Tom Thayer, color guy for the Bears on radio, really have a degree from Notre Dame and yet say, out loud, "He could have went deeper...."
So, you say, this is turning into a rant. I'll stop, but thank you, Mrs. Williams. (Incidentally, you may recall that she had a daughter, Phyllis, who was in our class.) I'll also note that I think it was Fred Hartwig who responded to our request and taught a semester of Russian history that was as fascinating as any novel. Dick Cima was also a stitch.
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