Today I will be a 56-year-old divorced woman. Tomorrow I will be a drunken college girl. I’m fat? Nah…I’m skinny? Whence come my thoughts? What is my internet identity today? Will they respect my words if they come from a doctor? I could just be anonymous.

Steve, are you going anywhere with this? Yes. If I’m going to read what you’ve written, I’m going to need to know a little information about you.

There should be a rule that all bloggers need to post:

It has been pointed out that my previous entry was too much like this entry:

http://www.theevilempire.com/musings/archives/000229.php

I can't help it that, at times, the same damn things annoy me. I can't tell you the number of times I've come close to reposting this:

http://www.theevilempire.com/musings/archives/000181.php

Oh well... You're just going to have to deal with it. ;)

I'm curious. What is your biggest grammar pet peeve? Lately I’ve been less and less able to tolerate people screwing up “fewer vs. less.”

For instance:

Now with less ads.
Now with less carbs.

I know that I have a bit of the old OCD. As such I’m more likely to be bothered by the butchery. So today I ask the question – what drives you nuts?

I love it when I come across a good find. Here's today's find for my fellow language geeks:

Everyone knows that it's a gaggle of geese, but did you know that it was a peep of chickens? You probably knew that it was a murder of crows, but did you know that it was a parliament of owls? Here's a handy guide for the next time you're at a loss when you see a big group of storks. Memorize the list and you too can say, "Hey -- look at that mustering of storks!"

Many times in life it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked when the same is true in the wonderful world of words. Everywhere you look these days words are engaged in old-fashioned sibling rivalry, and, much like life, the problem child is getting all the attention.

Don’t believe me? When was the last time that you were at a party and said, “My, my, you look quite kempt.” Chances are you haven’t. That’s because his brother, Unkempt, locked Kempt in the closet. Kempt sits there forgotten, lost in a sea of Unkempt’s haphazardly strewn clothes.

I can’t remember the last time I actually got to talk with Figured. Her bitter sister, Disfigured, is always yapping away, “This scar across my face happened from the accident. This gash was …..blah blah blah” Hap sits in the corner alone as his brother spills red wine on the carpet. The rest of the party tries not to stare as Misshapen waddles around the room. Avow couldn’t even come to the party because his brother sold him down the river.

Am I being ingenuous in my argument? Who knows? Heck, I don’t know if Ingenuous is still alive. Perhaps he was killed by his slimy brother.

I feel the pain of the overshadowed words. So, as of today, I will now be giving equal time to the good children. Reward the good words for behaving themselves. They deserve it!

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I constructed the following paragraph as an English quiz:

Last night I dreamt that I was a bookkeeper. Technically, I was a librarian, but I did keep books there. I lived in a library filled to the rafters with books made of silver. It was a Rousseauian Utopia that far exceeded my previous dreams. Wait; that’s wrong. I think that Moore might be the Utopian guy. I suppose that doesn’t really matter. I was being facetious. My idea of Utopia doesn't come with books. Books are just another form of power. Books are a way that people try to own thoughts. If it were up to me, I would make all books uncopyrightable!

Many of the words in the paragraph are interesting to a language geek like me. The question is “Which ones are interesting and why?”

Today's quiz:

What do all the following words have in common?

cleave
trim
fast
buckle
fix

(For the benefit of others, don't post the answer. You'll know if you're correct. If you need more or want to verify, drop me a line.)

Newscasters really need to learn that there is a difference between less and fewer. On several occasions I have heard reporters say the phrase:

"There are less victims than originally reported."

Did the victims go on a diet? Did the victims turn out to be skinnier than first thought?

I remember being 6 (maybe 7) when the teacher said, "There is less sand. There are fewer grains of sand." Should we send these people back to elementary school?

Oh yeah; I'm gonna scream the next time that I hear, "Join Suzy and I at 6 for the news."

Computer programming has apparently ruined my once delicate use of parentheses. I now have no problems using parentheses. Even worse, I don't blink twice about using nested parentheses (you know the kind (the ones like this)).

Simple rule:

'I's' is never right. Unlike 'me' vs. 'I', you are never correct if you say 'I's'. This is true for the possessive (e.g. "It's Kim and I's place."). It is also true for the contraction of is (e.g. "I's educated."). The only time that 'I's' could be right is with the following sentence: "I's ztupid."

I am a big TV watcher. For the most part I find television very calming. However, lately I have been "Full Of Rage" when watching TV. What is bothering me now? It is the grammar that is used by the characters.

It is bad enough that my local Starbucks barista doesn't know the difference between 'me' and 'I'; now I have to watch TV shows where lawyers, doctors, and teachers are constantly making mistakes.

There is NO excuse for this. This is not a real-time decision. These are scripts! These scripts are written by authors who write the dialog for lawyers. They are then edited by other authors. After that, an actor reads and memorizes the lines. If the writers and the editors don't catch the mistake, the actor surely has to think, "hmmm. I'm playing a Harvard-educated lawyer. He would probably know a sixth-grade grammar rule."

After the writers, the editors, and the actors have missed the mistake, the scene is then performed in front of the director. Surely he will catch the mistake. Apparently he won't.

This leads me to believe that one of two things is happening. Either a) writers, editors, actors, and directors all can miss a rule I was taught in my pre-teens or b) someone has decided that these characters' speech would be more authentic with the mistakes. Personally, I don't know which is worse!

If you've read my previous entries, you probably know that one of my pet peeves is the erosion of the English language.

It's getting worse. Corporate America has joined the forces of evil. While I was standing in the supermarket line, I noticed that candy makers have determined that the 'S' and the 'Z' are interchangeable. If you doubt this, listen to just a few of my impulse-purchase choices: Koolerz, Mintz, and Squintz.

It's gotten to the point where we are trying to convince kids that being uneducated is kool. Personally, I think that the whole concept is Ztupid.

Much has been said about losing tone in e-mail. However, lately I have been bothered by IM (instant message). A friend of mine has a slightly different set of stock IM phrases. For example, I say, "BRB." He might say, "AFK." This is understandable. People use different words in conversation. Why shouldn't this happen in IM?

The problem is that for mild laughter (not quite "lol" but amusing nonetheless) I use "hehe" and he uses "heh." I don't know why the lack of an E bothers me, but it seems to. Every time that he uses this I envision him muttering a forced "heh." You know the kind. Someone tells a joke. You don't think that it is really funny. However, you want that person to understand that you knew that it was at least supposed to be funny. Out comes the "Heh."

I know what you are thinking; "Maybe you're just not funny." This is very possible. However, he uses this in his own weblogs. Which leads me to believe that either a) he doesn't think that he is funny or b) his "heh" is my "hehe." I have to believe that it is the latter.

Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else?

I found myself in an awkward position the other day. I was writing a letter to someone and wrote something like "The company sent her and me to the conference." I paused and shook my head. I knew that I would have to change the sentence. This made me so sad. I had to change a sentence that was grammatically correct because it would sound wrong to 90 percent of the world. This lead me to think that if I said this in:

*sigh*

"There is no emoticon for how I am feeling right now"

- comic book guy in the Simpsons

Lately I have been feeling very confined by the limited set of emoticons in MSFT Messenger. I also hate the "sticking your tongue out" emoticon. He just looks too goofy. Why can't MSFT give us the ability to import sets of emoticons? Wouldn't that be great? I could finally have that "cower in fear" emoticon that I have always wanted. We could all share sets. There would be a button to send sets of emoticons. You could choose to use the other person's set or yours. We could define our own. Ahhh. What a world it would be. < wistful hoping (like I am thinking of Kristen Kreuk) emoticon / >

I'm not saying that I am picky or anal. There are many different ways to skin a cat. That's fine, but to paraphrase Henry Ford, "You can do it anyway you want, as long as it's my way."

Here are some examples:

I have decided that I really like the word 'insofar.' There is something about it being three words squished together that I find very amusing.

It's sort of like the Neopolitan ice cream sandwich of words!

Road to Perdition

My wife and I have an ongoing debate. I maintain that this movie failed, in part, because people don't know/don't like the word "perdition." She just doesn't understand that people are stupid.

Do your own poll. Let me know if people know what perdition means.

I am so sick of people mixing up me and I (e.g. He gave the book to John and I). It really isn't that hard. Use this trick -- take the other person out; say it out loud and see if you sound like a complete idiot. If you do, switch it.

Examples:

I can't help you if you think that "Me went to the store" sounds right.

nauseous = Causing nausea; sickening
nauseated = To experience a feeling of sickness in the stomach characterized by an urge to vomit

Please get it straight!