Like, Whatever, Dude

     Which of these words and phrases annoys you the most?

• at the end of the day
• anyway
• it is what it is
• whatever
• you know

     Or does some other word or phrase annoy you more? 

     Find out what other people said in this Marist Poll.

     The one that annoys me the most is “it is what it is.”  It should go without saying.  Really it should, you know?

Watching Our Language

     If you are as old as I am, you probably talk about dialing a number on the telephone.  None of my phones has a dial, but I still usually say it.  Weird, huh?  What is the correct term now, anyway?

     Have you ever bought a pig in a poke?  Have you literally ever done so?  I haven’t, but I have used the quaint expression.  Maybe I offended pigs (or other animals that it excludes).  I should probably reconsider saying it.

    It seems that watching our language has become an obsession for some folks.  Some of it needs to be watched, I’m sure.  Many common expressions do have racist or sexist origins.  Then again, some people a bit too sensitive.

     Is it wrong to say that a certain day is a black day or that somebody has a black mark against him or her?  Do those terms really offend people with lots of melanin?  I might be missing something, but I do not think that those terms have anything to do with people of African origin.  They have more to do with connotations involving night, darkness, and death.

     How about a gentleman’s agreement?  Given that a pig in a poke is not really a pig, do the people in question have to be gentlemen to have such an agreement?  Couldn’t two women have a “gentleman’s agreement” if they wish, since it refers more to the honor of the participants than to their sex?  Or, if they prefer, couldn’t they choose to come to a “lady’s agreement”?  Nobody’s going to lock them up if they do so.  But does the phrase need to be banned so as not to offend women?  (I doubt that women are really so fragile that the phrase can hurt them that much, especially if two men utter it to each other!)

     And what exactly is so bad about calling a person one’s “right-hand man”?  Yes, it is based on the fact that most people are right-handed, but does it really hurt left-handed people to hear it?  Let them say “left-hand man” if they want–or “left-hand woman” or ”left-hand person” or whatever they like.  I would actually find it amusing to hear “left-hand woman” spoken by a left-handed person, but it would not be funny at all if we obliterated the original expression.  I have a left-handed sister and a left-handed daughter, and I love them very much.  They have pretty much made peace with the fact that they are statistically abnormal and must fit into a world of mostly right-handed people.  They can live with it.  They are strong.  They don’t see a need to control other people’s language.

     One more question, and then I am done for now.  How could anyone object to the phrase “ethnic minority,” since it describes in very precise and accurate terms exactly what it is?  How can it offend a group of people who actually are an ethnic minority to be so designated?  In some countries, such as the United States, it now pays to be designated as a member of an ethnic minority.  People should be happy to be labeled that way.

     I’m a short, graying, slightly flabby man.  Calling me a not-so-tall, distinguished, nicely rounded person doesn’t change it.

Spelling Rule a Useless Tool?

     Did you ever learn the “i before e” rule?  I did, and I believe that it helped me with words such as the believe that I just wrote a few words back.  I cannot conceive (there’s another one) of not teaching kids the rule and encouraging them to use it.  The British government, however, can. 

     I teach the rule in the longer form:

I before E, except after C

Or when sounded as “ay,” as in neighbor or weigh.

     The rule in that form covers almost every word in the English language.  A few exceptions are either, neither, weird, foreign, sovereign, seize, counterfeit, and protein.

     The one part of the rule that is pretty much inviolable, as far as I can tell is that ei is the correct combination to use for the “ee” sound after the letter c, as in deceive, receive, conceive, perceive, and ceiling, along with all their various forms and with words formed from them (receipt, imperceivable, deceitfulness, etc.)

     I have found it very helpful for remembering tricky words such as friend and believe. 

     What do you think?  Is it a useful rule? 

     This discussion brings to mind the general difficulties in English spelling.  Do you think that our orthography should be reformed?  Do you think spelling is even important?

     I wish that our spelling system were simpler, but nobody has the authority to make it happen.  For Americans at least, a new spelling system would probably end up like the metric system.  It would also have some disadvantages. 

1. Most of the books of the last 200 years would appear very odd until they were all updated. 
2. Changing spelling patterns would obscure the etymology of words.  For example, spelling police as “polees” would mask the fact that it was borrowed from French and spelling photograph as “fotograf” woudl hide the fact that it is derived from Greek. 
3. Adults would have a difficult time adjusting to a new system, unless it were phased in very gradually, which means that you would have two systems operating at once, and that could lead to confusion and frustration.
4. English has many homophones, such as weight and wait, bare and bear, and cot and caught.  Although context almost always reveals the meaning, it is handy to look at the written word and know instantly what it refers to.  Picture this:  I could not wate to tell my wife that my wate had gone down.  or I got up from my cot and cot the bare, but I could not bare to kill him.  Yuck!

     All in all, I would like to see a simpler spelling system for English, but I would like it to evolve gradually and naturally.  A perusal of books from the 15th to the 21st Centuries shows that it has already been happening and that it continues to happen.  As I always say, people at large usually do better work than committees.

Dialogue?

     A certain regular commenter here likes to argue in an annoying manner.  A typical thread runs something like this:

RG:  Coffee is my favorite beverage.

J:  So you are saying that you hate tea.

RG:  No, I’m saying that I like coffee more.  Please don’t misrepresent me.

J:  You said that you hate tea.  In fact, you probably go around smashing teapots.

RG:  No, I’ve never smashed a teapot in my life.  I do not believe in smashing teapots because it is wasteful.  I denounce the smashing of teapots.

J:  You said so yourself.  You said you hate tea, which means that you must go around smashing teapots.  You probably also set fire to tea plantations.

RG:  No I don’t.  I would never destroy somebody else’s property.

J:  You said that you did.  Besides, since you hate tea, you are inciting other people to burn down tea plantations and smash teapots, which is exactly the same as doing it yourself.

RG:  Look, I drink tea sometimes.  I don’t hate it.

J:  You certainly changed your mind quickly.  First you hate tea, and now you admit that you love it.  But deep down you probably still discriminate against tea, since you have admitted that you are a bigot.

RG:  I never admitted that.  Please stop misrepresenting me.

J:  Yes you did.  When you said that coffee is your favorite beverage, you were really saying I am a bigot.  I don’t know any other way to parse that sentence.  Besides, in an earlier post you said that you play the piano.  That proves that you hate the violin, and since you hate the violin you must also hate tea.

RG:  Whatever!

—–

I have not decided what to do about said commenter.  I am considering deleting all comments that misquote or misrepresent me, although I would rather not do that.  It takes too much time to answer every one of the fictitious objections, but I don’t want to just ignore them.  I worry that somebody will read J’s version of what I say and have an inaccurate view of me.  What I might do is just insert a little note that says “[RG denies saying it]“.

Leaving God Out

     I don’t know if you have ever noticed it, but Christian ministers tend to mention God from time to time.  It goes with their job.

     A hospice organization in Florida seems to be surprised that a minister would actually bring up God sometimes.  I’m surprised that they are surprised.  Why have a chaplain if the chaplain is not supposed to express religious beliefs?

     Hospice by the Sea in Boca Raton tried to forbid the Reverend Mirta Signorelli from mentioning God when she prays during staff meetings.  Why even ask her to pray if you don’t want her to mention God?  Who is a Christian minister supposed to pray to anyway–the great nobody?

     The CEO says that the ban was enacted because they do not impose religion on their staff.  How does using a certain word impose anything on anyone?  Are the listeners so weak that they crumble in abject submission before the Almighty because the minister utters a certain word? 

     I’ve heard lots of words in my life.  Not one of them has caused me to  adopt a belief against my will.  Not one of them has scared me so badly that I demanded that people not say it in order to protect my tender little ears from hearing things I don’t agree with.

          What do you think?

Rules of Blogging Engagement

     I have been reading and commenting on blogs for over two years, and I have been writing and editing this blog for nearly that amount of time.  During that period I have seen all sorts of interesting attitudes and behaviors.  Some of them sadden me, some of them delight me, and some of them actually frighten me. 

     I’m not innocent of blogging crimes, I will admit at the outset.  I have written things that I should not have.  I have been too forceful, too unthoughtful, too unfeeling.  I hope that other guilty parties who read this will admit the same thing.

     Along the way, I have developed some rules for myself, which I follow more or less consistently.  I think that they are good rules.  Some of them have been suggested by other readers and writers.  Some of them have roots in my college philosophy and rhetoric classes.  Others are just plain courtesy.  What do you think about these rules?

1.  Stay on topic.  Although you might have a different agenda than the blog owner, it is not polite to go way off on a tangent just to satisfy your need to be heard.  Write about anything you want on your own blog, but show proper respect to other bloggers by sticking to the topics that they choose.  If a person writes a blog about dogs, don’t keep posting comments about the superiority of cats.  It’s childish and annoying.

2.  Read carefully.  I myself have made stupid comments because I misunderstood what I was commenting on.  Sometimes it is my own dunderheadedness, and sometimes it is the awkwardness of the writing.  Nevertheless, it is important to summon up all your reading skills and try to clearly and carefully understand what is being communicated.  If somebody says that dogs are stupendous, don’t reply, “They are not stupid.  They are quite intelligent.”

3.  Have realistic expectations.  Most blog posts are only a few hundred words long or shorter.  They cannot discuss a topic comprehensively.  They cannot reflect every nuance of the writer’s thoughts on a particular matter.  They cannot be the definitive statement on any subject.  They cannot answer every question.  Take them as brief statements that make very limited points.  Consider them discussion starters.  If a person says that he likes dogs but doesn’t mention cats, don’t assume that he hates cats.  And don’t assume that he wants to marry his dog  or nominate the dog for president or transform himself into a dog–unless he actually says so himself.

4.  Take the words at face value.  If a person makes a statement about his beliefs, attitudes, or opinions on a blog, you pretty much have to accept that the person is sincere and accurate.  You cannot prove otherwise, unless you can point out where the writer has been inconsistent.  In that case, the writer might be able to reconcile the two statements and clarify his or her position.  If you comment, “So you are really saying that dogs are the only thing that matter in life.” you are probably misrpresenting the writer’s actual viewpoint, and that’s neither fair nor kind.

5.  Avoid the ad hominem fallacy.  It looks like this:  You would think that, since you are a Christian or Well, of course you think that, because you are a liberal.  It’s not nice to pigeon-hole, stereotype, or generalize about people.  It’s not actually a logical argument, either.  That’s why it’s called a fallacy.  Some Christians like cats, and some liberals like dogs.  Other Christians prefer dogs, and other liberals prefer cats.  Hardly anybody can be labelled precisely.

6.  If possible, back your statements with evidence.  I don’t always do that on my blog, because a lot of what I write about is simply general opinions that I hold based more on my core principles and my reasoning.  I don’t always have time to look up sources, either.  It’s a major weakness of my blog.    When I’m really on the ball, I link to smarter people and to informative websites.  Please, if you choose to challenge a fact statement, it is good to at least gnerally describe the basis for the challenge if you cannot give a reference to a legitimate source.  If your challenge is not of the factual kind, try to use good deductive reasoning for your view.  (And, no, “You’re just stupid,” is not good deductive reasoning.)  “Dogs are bad pets because they smell bad when wet” is more like it.

7.  Don’t get hysterical.  It’s a bit over the top to write.  “Oh, so you ONLY like dogs.  You said so yourself.  You probably want to send cat-owners to prison.  No, you probably want to kill them.  You’re a dog-lover, so of course you want to kill people.  You’re just as bad as the Nazis.”

8.  Be honest.  People know what they themselves think and feel, and they know what they wrote.  It’s pretty silly to lie and say that they think or feel the opposite of what they have stated.  It’s pretty silly to claim that they wrote the exact opposite of what they actually wrote.  Not only are they aware that you are lying, but anyone who reads the posts and the comments knows it, too.  They won’t look down on the person that you are lying about; they will look down on you.

     By the way, I like cats.  I don’t really have a preference between dogs and cats.

In Praise of the Apostrophe

     Apostrophes are useful when they are used with a noun and the ending -s.  The absence or presence of an apostrophe, and its position if present, tell you whether a noun is

1. plural
2. possessive or
3. plural and possessive.

     Officials in Birmingham, England, don’t see it that way.  They consider apostrophes confusing and contentious.  They have officially banned them from street signs.

     I’ve seen many a fourth grade student who could master the use of apostrophes, so I don’t get the assertion that you need to be extremely good in English to figure them out.  I’ve never seen a law yet that could end controversy, so I don’t get the assertion that by banning the apostrophe they have ended all disagreement and debate.  What’s really going on in Birmingham?

     The apostrophe was invented because it is useful to distinguish between various functions of nouns, as in

• Green Bar and Grill = apparently a bar named after a color or a person named after that color, or perhaps a bar owned by an environmentally conscious person
• Greens Bar and Grill = apparently a bar named after leaves or town parks or after two or more people named Green (Maybe you can eat spinach salad there!)
• Green’s Bar and Grill = apparently a bar owned and operated by a person named Green
• Greens’ Bar and Grill = apparently a bar owned and operated by two people named Green

While it is not absolutely necessary to have the apostrophe to figure out the meaning and function of the noun, it is very helpful.  Of course, it’s not helpful if the person who designed or made the sign made an error.  The second example above was probably made without the apostrophe because the person who designed or made it found apostrophes too confusing and therefore left it out.  Of course, it might have been left out to save money, which is pretty miserly in my opinion.

     Whenever my middle-school students leave out the apostrophe, as in

I went to Bills house.

I ask them how many Bills they are referring to.  I remind them that an -s by itself makes the noun plural.  They sigh and stick the helpful apostrophe in.  I suggest that as they drive around town they notice the use of the apostrophe on signs and note any misuses or omissions they observe.  It motivates some of them to be more careful in using apostrophes when they write.

     Apostrophe, I love you.  May you live forever!  May your detractors realize how useful you are.

[NOTE:  The last line is a joke.  Did you get it?]

Annoying Words and Phrases

     Which trendy words and phrases annoy you?  I have several I could list.  Lake Superior State University has just published its annual list of words that should be banished.  I agree.  Here are the three from that list that bug me the most and my own comments on them:

Green and Going Green

It’s a good concept, but the word and its various uses have lost any impact they ever had through overuse and even misuse.  (On a sidetrack, it would seem to me that producing lots of CO2 would be a very green thing to do, since plants require it for photosynthesis.)

Winner of Five Nominations

It’s an oxymoron.  Being nominated does not make you a winner.  It makes you a nominee.

Not So Much (as in, “I like this phrase not so much.”)

It was cute the first time I heard it.  Slightly annoying the second time.  Completely worn out the third time.

———————————————————–    

     How about you?  What words or phrases from the list get on your nerves?  Are there any that should have won a nomination?

Another New Idea for Marriage

     While we in America are considering new definitions for the term marriage, I have come up with one that I think will appeal to a lot of people.  I know a lot of people who love their cars–I mean really love their cars.  Some people spend a lot more money and time on their car than on the significant people in their lives.  Therefore, I think that people should be allowed to marry their cars. 

     If you disagree, then you are just like the people who were against black people and white people getting married. 

     It is a basic civil right to marry anyone–or anything–that one chooses, isn’t it?  I say so, and that’s all that really matters.  Centuries of tradition, legal precedent, and biological realities aren’t important.  All that matters is what a vocal minority wants.

—————————————————-

     I know, I know.  I just compared homosexual people to inanimate objects.  I really don’t mean to offend anyone.  In case you don’t get it, here are the points I am attempting to make:

1.  If all definitions are arbitrary or subjective, then anyone can change them to whatever they want.

2.  No two random entities are necessarily interchangeable.  Sexual preference isn’t necessarily or always equivalent to racial characteristics.  Men are not biologically interchangeable with women, especially when it comes to the reproduction process.

3.  Just because somebody expresses something, such as I did above, that doesn’t mean that it is good or right or sound.  Something doesn’t have to be a law just because a lot of people say it should be.  Other grounds must be given, and those grounds must be based on something valid.

Arguing Over Words

     So the opponents of Proposition 8 in California are arguing that it revised the state constitution rather than simply amended it.  I can’t wait to see what the justices do with that one.  Is there a legal distinction between amending and revising?  Is there a definite line dividing the two actions?

     I would think that amending would generally refer to adding something that is not yet covered by the consitution or clarifying something that might be misunderstood in the consitution.  Revising would probably refer to changing the wording or order of things already in the constitution.  But what do I know?  I’m basing my thoughts on the amendments that have been made to the United States Constitution.

     But then again, when I give it some more thought, I think that some of the Amendments to the Constitution have been pretty substantial and significant changes.  For example, giving personhood and citizenship status to black people was a major change from the original Consitution.  Nevertheless, we call that part of the Consitution “Amendment 14″ and not “Revision 14.”

     I don’t blame the opponents to Proposition 8 for trying to find a way to invalidate it.  It’s their right.  They should have their day in court.  I just can’t wait to see how a justice can determine if something is an amendment or a revision. 

     In the meantime, the Attorney General says that the amendment should take effect and should be enforced.  He’s right.  If officials can simply ignore parts of the state consitution that they do not like, then we have become a country run by political power instead of a country run by law.  Let’s hope it’s not that bad just yet.