paragraph essay every Friday (or Monday, depending on the English teacher) from 8th grade through my senior year. I kick myself every time I post something with an error in it, and then edit my post to correct it. I mean, I cannot even use the passive voice in my writing. It drives me crazy any time I see it. When I first went to work in my father's accounting firm, he would ask me to edit his letters, and he would have passive voice sentences all over the place. I would practically re-write the whole letter.

I am also a stickler for using the Oxford comma and putting TWO SPACES after a period, even though modern writing rules say neither is really necessary any longer.

I will give my dad this, though. Any time I asked him how to spell a word or what a word means, his response was always, "look it up." That's how he learned to speak English (he was 14 years old when he arrived in this country), and his vocabulary was quite extensive as a result. He was truly an inspiration, and one I appreciate more every day, especially since his passing.