12/12/10

England called; they want their language back.

Okay, so this subject is a bit tired but in being a wordsmith, I have to speak on it.  My speech certainly isn't perfect, but some of this shit is ridiculous. 

Apparently, the English language is too much for many of our people to handle, especially where plurals, possessives, and contractions are concerned.  Case in point: the "Your vs. You're" and "Their vs. There" phenomena.

"Your" is possessive.  "You're" is a contraction.  If YOU'RE having trouble with this, just break the contraction apart.  Example: "This is your problem" makes sense.  "This is [you are] problem" does not.

"Their" is a possessive.  "There" means "that place."  So, "This is their problem" makes sense.  "This is [that place] problem" does not.

Also, an apostrophe - s combination does not mean plural.  If you see a sign that says "Donut's, 50 cents each," then this means you are buying DONUTS from idiots.

There are some spell-checkers out there that don't bother to catch these items, because even inanimate microchips and software can't believe that a person can operate a computer and also be this stupid.

We also have "Then vs. Than" and a bunch of others that I won't get into here.  My point is that these lessons came shortly after the alphabet; people over the age of unsupervised defecation should not be fucking this up.  Either the education system is every bit as shitty as people are saying, or people just love to be ignorant and don't mind looking like simpletons--neither of which is good for our nation or my carpal tunnels.

We're also becoming so lame that people are throwing around buzz-words with no actual buzz.  Lately, it's people calling everyone a form of "Terrorist," and accusing the Republicans of being "hostage takers." 

Okay, so saying that someone is "holding a tax-cut bill hostage" sounds off-the-map, because typically we think of hostages as people--or really important things that are somehow "stolen."  Therefore, hostage-taking is an extreme act--such as...(drum roll)...Ooh, terrorism!  You could tone it down slightly and say that they are "holding a bill for ransom," which is really the same thing.  It still sounds too grandiose for the situation. 

Following this system, you could technically say that realtors are "terrorists" because they hold housing information "hostage."  My first girlfriend once "put me in the doghouse."  This was an act of sexual terrorism, which is even more sadistic than the normal kind when you think about it, because she was holding her own pussy hostage!  She might still be out there doing this to other men--should I call the Feds?

The problem here is, there aren't a whole lot of other ways in our language to describe this type of scenario (not wanting to provide or "release" something).  So don't be a fucking baby about it.  It's nowhere near the insult or accusation people are pretending it is.  It's just weak English.

P.S. nobody owns the words "Nigger" or "Faggot," so stop fighting over them.  Nobody owns them and nobody wants them.  You'll never erase or control them--not even if you become the next American hero by holding a bunch of terrorists hostage and demanding these words as ransom.