"AS I SAID"

My brother asked, "Do you remember the grammar book we had in school?"

I answered, "The Harcourt College Handbook."

He asked, "Is that the gray one with Shakespeare on the cover?"



I answered, "No, the gray and red one is the Plain English Handbook; Mrs. Craig handed out those in the 7th grade; the Harcourt is blue."

He asked, "I wonder if they're still published?"

I said, "I still have mine; you could probably get them from Amazon."

He asked, "Remember when you let out that scream when somebody said "have went"?"; if I hear "like I said" one more time, I'm going to kill someone; as you would say, that's my bete noir."

I said, "Just tell them to go online to learn the difference!"

"No, I want to hit them on the head with a book!"

I said, "Just quote Mrs. Craig: "never use "like" in place of "as" to introduce a clause"; that's the rule."

I hope Mrs. Craig knew how influential she was--and is!