The PA race was the worst. I'm so happy to see that the NY Times is seeing the light and basically retracting it's Hillary endorsement from months ago! I'm on board for all of their criticism. Also CNN is the worst. No matter what happens, the best political news team on television is going to make it dramatic and critical and important! No one thought Obama was going to win PA!! It's not that big of a deal! (More here.)
Obama is campaigning with a strategy not just willy nilly roaming all over the country. That's because the person with the most delagates is supposed to win. That's how it works. It's not like, whoever wins Ohio or Pennsylvania automatically deserves to get the nomination.
Jon Stewart is so funny though. This is what he asked Obama in the interview:
"Do you have a concern that you could win the nomination at the Convention and defeat John McCain in the general and, you know, go to the inauguration and Hillary would still be running? Do you feel... Do you have any concern that Senator Clinton would continue the campaign?"
I learned a new word the other day. I was playing Text Twist on Matt's ipod, and one of the words I missed was "fracas." It didn't even look real to me, but it's totally a word, as I found out, and it means "a noisy quarrel." I think that's appropriate, the word sounds like it should mean some kind of scuffle. Like: "Matt caused a fracas at Jeff's apartment on Hoboken St. Patty's day and ended up with a messed up face."
Then yesterday, it was used in two totally different blogs I read on the internet. SO COOL!
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
I'm a hypocrite about words and definitely a dork for even thinking about this
I'm so weird and inconsistent about how I feel about using and pronouncing words we got from other languages. My overall philosophy is trying to be down to earth and unpretentious, and progressive and I definitely think language exists to enable communication, and that's it. Language constantly evolves, and I don't like the idea that there are definite ways to say things or that grammar/punctuation rules is set in stone. It's helpful to maintain some standards for clarity, and I loooove copyeditors, don't get me wrong, but people who call themselves "grammar-nazis" are really annoying and self-righteous. It's like, you're getting so hung up on these rules, and they're only there to facilitate you in conveying ideas. If people understand what you're saying/writing, then stop being annoying.
Anyway, given what I just said, it really really bothers me when people doubly misuse pronouns. I don't care when people misuse them in the more common way of using the incorrect pronoun as the subject of a sentence (eg., "Bob and me went there yesterday."), but I just hate it when people overcompensate and decide that any time you talk about yourself and someone else, that you should always use the pronoun "I." As in "This is really important to Ralph and I." No no no no no. It's the overcompensation that gets to me, because people make a point of using the subject pronoun when there's actually a distinction on when you use each, and they're trying to sound intelligent and smart by using 'I' in all instances. They know some sort of rule exists concerning the use of different types of pronouns, but they don't actually know what they are. That's what that is.
It bothers me when people misuse other words, too, usually food. Especially bruschetta and panini. Panini means "sandwiches," soooo, when Matt says he's going to make himself a "panini sandwich," he's actually saying that he will have a "sandwiches sandwich." The mis-pronunciation of bruschetta doesn't bother me so much as the misuse. Bruschetta is the bread, NOT a tomato, olive oil, basil mixture. You can have bruschetta with any kind of topping you want, or you could even just eat the bread with no topping and no tomatoes at all, and you'd still be eating bruschetta!
Vahz, Vayse; enDIVE, ahn-deev, I don't actually care, I don't think we should be too hung up. Though, it makes sense to try to pronounce things in the way they originally were, but if you're American, and from the Northeast like me, you probably have a really obnoxious, harsh, nasal accent, and I sound stupid and obnoxious when I start pronouncing "croissant" as "kwasohhhhn." When I worked at the diner, I would pronounce "gyro" as "jai-ro," because when I said it correctly, no one understood what I was saying. Some people said it as "guy-ro," and anyone would have to admit, that's pretty bad, and we should look down on and shun those people.
What's my problem? I know that's how those words are used in America, and I know what I'm getting when I order bruschetta in a restaurant, but whatever. I also have no problem when someone says "axed" instead of "asked," because, you know what, in the year 3000, that's how it's going to be pronounced anyway. (Thanks to Futurama for that little peek into our destiny).
I still order drinks at Starbucks by their actual names. AKA "grahhn-day" for a Medium. My friend who worked there told me people often come in and order a "grand." We laughed a lot about that.
Basically, it's OK when I'm pretentious about certain words, but when other people do it, it's obnoxious and a huge turn-off. That's fair, right?
Anyway, given what I just said, it really really bothers me when people doubly misuse pronouns. I don't care when people misuse them in the more common way of using the incorrect pronoun as the subject of a sentence (eg., "Bob and me went there yesterday."), but I just hate it when people overcompensate and decide that any time you talk about yourself and someone else, that you should always use the pronoun "I." As in "This is really important to Ralph and I." No no no no no. It's the overcompensation that gets to me, because people make a point of using the subject pronoun when there's actually a distinction on when you use each, and they're trying to sound intelligent and smart by using 'I' in all instances. They know some sort of rule exists concerning the use of different types of pronouns, but they don't actually know what they are. That's what that is.
It bothers me when people misuse other words, too, usually food. Especially bruschetta and panini. Panini means "sandwiches," soooo, when Matt says he's going to make himself a "panini sandwich," he's actually saying that he will have a "sandwiches sandwich." The mis-pronunciation of bruschetta doesn't bother me so much as the misuse. Bruschetta is the bread, NOT a tomato, olive oil, basil mixture. You can have bruschetta with any kind of topping you want, or you could even just eat the bread with no topping and no tomatoes at all, and you'd still be eating bruschetta!
Vahz, Vayse; enDIVE, ahn-deev, I don't actually care, I don't think we should be too hung up. Though, it makes sense to try to pronounce things in the way they originally were, but if you're American, and from the Northeast like me, you probably have a really obnoxious, harsh, nasal accent, and I sound stupid and obnoxious when I start pronouncing "croissant" as "kwasohhhhn." When I worked at the diner, I would pronounce "gyro" as "jai-ro," because when I said it correctly, no one understood what I was saying. Some people said it as "guy-ro," and anyone would have to admit, that's pretty bad, and we should look down on and shun those people.
What's my problem? I know that's how those words are used in America, and I know what I'm getting when I order bruschetta in a restaurant, but whatever. I also have no problem when someone says "axed" instead of "asked," because, you know what, in the year 3000, that's how it's going to be pronounced anyway. (Thanks to Futurama for that little peek into our destiny).
I still order drinks at Starbucks by their actual names. AKA "grahhn-day" for a Medium. My friend who worked there told me people often come in and order a "grand." We laughed a lot about that.
Basically, it's OK when I'm pretentious about certain words, but when other people do it, it's obnoxious and a huge turn-off. That's fair, right?
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