The Name Explained (ouch, passive tense!)

One of the perks of my job is messing with customers. Since I work at a grocery store, many newbie customers assume (perhaps understandably, if not accurately) that I am barely capable of coherent speech. Now, I have a BA; I've aced a couple of graduate courses (not my major subject, thank you very much); I speak English, German, and can scrape along reading Dutch. I love Middle English. I also spent way too much of my undergrad years as a copyeditor for the college newspaper. I love red pens.

Result? I'm constantly correcting coworkers -- customers, too, if I know them. One day I had a feeling I'd corrected one coworker a few too many times, so after the last time I threw my fists in the air and cried, "Yes! It's Captain Semantics to the rescue!" to let everyone know that I do know when I'm being intolerable. Even if I still don't stop.

A few months later I threw my husband a birthday party where all the guests had to come as superheroes. I, of course, was Captain Semantics. I had a tiny Oxford American Minidictionary hooked up to an extendable janitor's keychain-beltclip. My superpower was to use the right word every time. Not the most exciting, but if you know me, it fits. At the same time weird, nerdy, and not a little bit silly.

Welcome to my blog! If you have any copyeditorial comments, please let me know! I'll probably completely disregard them and consider it character-building.