by Tammy Drennan Copyright 2006
Say what? Look it up -- you're a homeschooler, uh, home schooler, aren't you?
Okay, which are you? Personally, I’m a home schooler. Used to be a little dogmatic about it, too, but I’ve mellowed with age. Now, if someone calls me a homeschooler, I smile and bear it. I even have friends who are homeschoolers.
I have a few friends who are home educators, too. They’re snobs, but that’s okay – it takes all kinds.
The reason I’m a home schooler is because I started back in 1985, before the days of homeschooling. You tend to stick with the familiar, you know. For instance, if you started out in the days of Mrs., it twists your insides a bit to be called Ms.
I’m not sure when home schoolers started evolving into homeschoolers (I think Mary Pride had something to do with it), but I’m willing to concede at this point that it’s not all bad (this is a practical concession, not a grammatical one). But it’s still loaded with problems.
First of all, homeschooler is a long word – 12 letters in the singular noun version. Of course, it’s easily hyphenated, but that confuses people, because then they wonder if it’s supposed to be or if it just wouldn’t all fit on one line... because some people do hyphenate the word.
But there’s suspicion surrounding the rarely encountered hyphenated version. It’s used mostly by the press. Could be it’s the missing link in the evolutionary process and the writers just can’t let go. They’re partial to missing links being particular ones of their own have failed to surface.
What’s odd, speaking of evolution, is that some home schoolers and homeschoolers co-exist, though gorillas and humans co-exist, so maybe it’s not so strange after all (did you know that ‘afterall’ is not a word, though I predict it will be eventually).
Homeschoolers clearly carry the predominant genes, though, and it won’t be long before the only home schoolers you’ll encounter will be in back issues of home... home... homeschool magazines.
In the meantime, I intend to pacify everyone by using every variant of the term, be it noun, verb or title – and pacify myself by using the terms interchangeably and indiscriminately, with no effort going toward consistency.
Have you looked up etymologize yet?
