Because- Look Over There! Is Not a Valid Argument

First of all, I can't see what's wrong with this picture. I'm fairly certain that legally, you can get married in a clown costume if you want to. I'm not sure what that has to do with equality. I also think a man can legally get married while wearing a dress or sporting a mohawk. I'm fairly certain a woman can get married while dressed like an extra in a Wagner production, too. As for the dog, I've seen pictures of weddings in which dogs performed the role of best man and ringbearer, so yeah . . . I dunno.

As for Simple Dollar: Who Do You Love, I would like to start with WHOM! WHOM do you love. "Who" is a subject, "whom" is an object. In the sentence "Whom do you love?", the subject is "you", you are the person doing the loving, therefore it is "whom", not "who". Grammar, people!

You see, when a reader asks me if marriage is about love, then why can't they marry the person they love? The answer is simple, marriage is about who is most deserving of that love -- who you are most responsible to -- then who you most conveniently love, or who you figure might give you the kind of romance you want most expediently. When you focus on your responsibilities, the love grows between you naturally. And as the love grows, so does your ability to recognize your responsibilities. It all ties back to the man and the woman.

That is an entire paragraph of wharrgarbl followed by "because- look over there!" That is not a valid argument. That last sentence has nothing to do with the preceding four. On Lawn may as well as have written four oddly constructed sentences on the proper way to prepare hummus* and then tacked on "it all ties back to the man and the woman". It would have made exactly as much sense.

If On Lawn is going to wharrgarbl his way through some bigotry, he could at least do me the great favor of doing it grammatically. Honestly.

*A blender, a lot chick peas, some garlic and some olive oil. Anything else you'd like to add is up to you.

Three Words Went In, Only One Came Out

One of these men is probably my boss.

This conversation actually happened.

60 year old partner at a law firm: "There" is spelled t-h-e-i-r. You keep misspelling it." *Points to sentence that beings There are . . .*

Me: "That's one way of spelling it, sure."

60 year old partner at a law firm: *Gives me a weird look and walks away.*

It took me several minutes to realize that my boss clearly thinks that their, there and they're were involved in a Highlander/Thunderdome style deathmatch, in which three words went in, but only one word came out. And that victorious word was "their".

He gets paid 1,000 times what I do.

The Crazy 8's* of Bigotry

The Opine Editorials, best known for bigotry with a side order of wtf, has a new contributor: Renee. Whilst On Lawn enjoys sly homophobia and The Playful Walrus barely contained contempt for the other, Renee's style is more about splaying random words upon the screen that may or may not relate to any subject matter anywhere.

Exhibit 1:

From National Public Radio.... How I Met Your Father: A Mom's Memories And how many individuals today will not hear a positive story of their own parents meeting, because they don't love each other and too painful to remember? Why did it matter to the author to capture this memory?

This relates to same sex marriage how? Societal breakdown maybe? I don't know. It's definitely ungrammatical, in that VERBS: USE THEM is what I shouted upon reading it, but further reading didn't help me grasp any point at all.

Exhibit 2:

I just saw this article regarding fathers ability to prevent smoking in teenagers. 'Communicative Fathers' Help Reduce Teenage Smoking from Science Daily While many fathers are present at birth, who may not be married to the mother we have to ask where is that father 15 years down the road? Is he a just a child support check? Is he seen every other weekend? How does someone have consistent communication with his child, when the father does not live under the same roof. Does facebook count for personal communication? Can one parent online to a teenager? Another study to note is the disparity in blacks and whites regarding lung cancer. Blacks suffer from lung cancer at a much higher rate then whites. Now with 70% of all children, who are black being born out of wedlock what are their chances that there will be a communicative father down the road in their own lives?

COMMAS: LEARN THE RULES** is, of course, my first thought, because I don't think 70% of all children are black, which quickly turned into GOOGLE: USE IT so I did. Guess what I found? That's right. African Americans smoke less than whites. In fact, the reason blacks are more likely to die of lung cancer is lack of access to adequate health care, not smoking:

• Despite lower smoking rates, African Americans are more likely to develop and die of lung cancer than whites.
• African American men are 37 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than white men, even though their overall exposure to cigarette smoke – the primary risk factor for lung cancer – is lower.
• African Americans are more likely to be diagnosed later, when cancer is more advanced.
• African Americans are more likely to wait longer after diagnosis to receive treatment, to refuse treatment, and to die in the hospital after surgery.

That has nothing to do with raising children via Facebook, Renee. Thanks for playing!

*What? You've never played Crazy 8's? It's fun! I don't recommend Slapjack, although kids always think it's the best game ever.

** Let's eat, Fred! being a far different sort of day than Let's eat Fred!

I Swear I'll Do It.

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.