That Sound? Its My Sole Weeping.

Dear Internet:

I love you. I do. However, I have noticed a disturbing trend, a trend I cannot sit idly by and merely watch. I must step in, protest, curl up into the fetal position and cry and in a corner, if nothing else.

Spell check.

You see, spell check can be your friend, if you don't know how to spell a word. Just get close enough, spell check it and get the correct spelling. It's great. Unfortunately, spell check doesn't know the difference between the correctly spelled word you want and the correctly spelled word you don't want.

For example, we used to have an associate at the firm who was forever referencing the Untied States of America. He just couldn't figure out why the spell checker wouldn't pick that one up. As disturbing as this trend is, it's even more troubling when encountered in the blogs of homeschoolers, as in people teaching their children that "its" and "it's" are the same damn word. *sigh*

Anyway, for your edification, a few homonyms to ponder.

rein/reign/rain:

Rain is what falls from the sky.

Reins are what you control a horse with. As in "reining someone in" to mean controlling someone's behavior.

Reign is what a king does.

sole/soul:

A sole is the bottom of your shoe.

My soul is what you are hurting when you confuse these words.

threw/through:

You threw the rock through the window. Of my soul.

toe/tow:

Toes are at the end of your feet. You toe the line, btw.

Tow is what a tow truck does with your car when it breaks down.

here/hear:

Here is where I am.

You hear my words.

heel/heal:

Heel is the back end of your foot, as in "high heels".

Heal is what doctors do to your injuries. Jesus has never heeled your wounds. I hope.

bated/baited:

You baited the fishing line with worms.

You wait with bated breath.

by/buy:

You buy an iphone at the store by the mall.

no/know:

C'mon, people, really?

your/you're/yore:

You're reading your favorite blog right now, but in the days of yore there were no blogs.

they're/their/there:

They're enjoying their favorite music over there in the parking lot.

Feel free to add, oh, wait-

ad/add:

Ad is short for advertisement.

Add is what you do when you put 2 and 2 together to make 4.

Ahem, feel free to add your favorites to the comments. I'll be over here in a corner weeping quietly.

The English Language

english, spelling, grammar, metaphor, simile
Why is it the average Middle Easterner seems to have a better grasp of English than the average US blogger? Sure, nonnative speakers will misplace apostrophes, misspell and construct the occasional awkward sentence*, but I rarely see them abusing English the way native speakers do.

For example, certain words cannot be combined with modifiers, such as "unique" or "confidential". One of the attorneys where I work just told me something is "very confidential". No. Either something is confidential, or it is not. Nothing is "somewhat confidential" or "really confidential". The same goes for unique. Either something is entirely unlike everything else or it's not, but nothing is somewhat entirely unlike everything else. Duh.

Oh, and can we discuss metaphors for a moment? Most people seem incapable of creating appropriate metaphors. I offer up for your perusal an example that while screamingly funny, also makes me want to cry. Or punch kittens.

A Stronger, Healthier America by Scott Robinson. It's a screed about letting poor children starve and letting old people die of easily treatable illnesses because, well, that's American or something. What's actually worse than the uberGOP rhetoric? This metaphor**:

Fortunately, she didn’t let the looks she was getting, where people seemed to scream with all the color in their eyes “why is there a crazy person taking a picture of the poster on the wall?” stop her from capturing this image.

"Scream with all the color in their eyes"? Really? How does one do that exactly? Can I, a brown-eyed person, scream louder than a blue-eyed person? (Less melanin, dontcha know.) That left a big ole bruise on English's tender face.

We'll end with a quick reminder of what appear to be very confusing English words:

They're, their, and there: they are, possessive of they, a place

It's and its: it is and possessive of it.

insure and ensure: relates to insurance and to secure or guarantee

affect and effect: when you affect a situation, you have an effect upon it. or, verb and noun.

continual and continuous: continual is frequently, recurring and intermittent. continuous is unceasing.

whose and who's: possessive and who is.

feel free to add your own. oh, and "add" is to unite or join so as to increase in number. "ad" is short for advertisement.


*Really, don't we all? I do it, though part of the problem is that I know what I meant to say, so when I reread what I've written, I'm not entirely reading what's on the screen, I'm also reading what's in my head.

Continuing the Cult of the Vagina

ASL, spanish, english, vagina, fertility, festival, easter
Thanks to uzza, we can all learn the ASL for "vagina". (That's not uzza, she just gave me the link. Thanks, uzza!)

I'm fairly certain the only way to properly celebrate a fertility festival is to learn how to talk about vaginas with everyone you meet, including the deaf. Please feel free to share how to discuss vaginas in any language other than English that you know.

Unfortunately, the only other language I speak is Spanish, and "vagina" in Spanish is "vagina", though it's not pronounced the same way.