Poor head
Can hardly move my lips for speaking
I said
So, what is this thing I cannot explain?
I’d blame all the things I feel but can’t quite place
Perhaps they’re written on my face
Someone took the words away
–Elvis Costello/Someone Took The Words Away
Words are funny things. My boss used the phrase “I’d like for our company to strive to be differentially excellent” in a meeting, and it made me want to poke him in the eye. That isn’t funny? Peculiar, then. I am weird about words. In the 17th century, I could have said I was nice about words. Now it means kind. Then it meant…precise.
I am less nice about punctuation than I am about words. Particularly when using, or rather abusing, ellipses or exclamation points. Uh, and commas. I think it’s a charming quirk. In case you are wondering, using words improperly is not a charming quirk unless you are doing it intentionally as some sort of intellectually stimulating word play. In which case, it still probably isn’t a charming quirk unless you are really good at it. Yes, I am the one who gets to make the call. It’s my blog.
Here’s another confession: it drives me a little mad when people misuse the word literal. No, you weren’t literally scared to death. You are still here annoying me with your misuse of the word literal. If you had been literally scared to death, you’d be lounging around in a cremation urn right now. And now I’m having a flashback to the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch. The part about “if you ‘adn’t nailed ‘im to the perch, ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies.”
I am not as rabid about the misuse of the word literal as some of my friends are. It’s annoying to me, but I don’t literally become a werewolf over it like some of them do.
Just shake your head and move on.
There is clearly nothing to see here.
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