Started a book–a novel. As usual, I read the acknowledgements. It’s a quirk of mine. The guy started off thanking “. . .the most influential English teacher in my life,” who “also happens to be my mother.” So far, so good. When he gets to his father, though, he demonstrates that the most influential English teacher in his life either wasn’t influential enough or was just not a very good teacher with,
“Growing up you thrilled and terrified my friends and I with bedtime stories. . . “
As any literate person knows, “my friends and” in that sentence doesn’t negate proper English usage. Absent, “my friends and” the sentence reads,
“Growing up you thrilled and terrified I with bedtime stories. . . “
Sounds like the statement of a subliterate doofus, right? Well, “my friends and” doesn’t change that.
That’s one strike. I’ll give him two more and a plot or character failure before the book is ashcanned. That’s fair, isn’t it?
And someone, please, report his mother for being an incompetent English teacher, mmmK?