Torturing Phrases

I revel in the prospect of being able to torture a phrase once more.  — S. J. Perelman

My best friend teaches grammar, and I have learned more from her about grammar than I ever learned in school. This week she gave me a lesson in commas. She wrote, “FANBOYS. That stands for for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.  When you have two clauses connected by one of those conjunctions, you use a comma.  Example:  I like chocolate, and I like vanilla, too.  I like chocolate, but I don't like vanilla. The important thing to remember is that a clause has a subject and a verb. If there's no subject and verb, it's not a clause, and you probably don't need a comma.”

This is what I love about her—she makes it so simple. Unfortunately, when it comes to putting her lessons into practice, I fall back on old habits. It’s just easier to hope that someone else will catch my mistakes before they are published rather than to look up everything. That sounds awful, but it is the simple truth. I am just way too busy writing to learn how to write well.

Because I torture the English language, does this mean I am a linguistical sadist or a sadistic linguist?