ENGLISH, MUTHA F**KA! DO YOU SPEAK IT?
I find it moderately annoying and somewhat sad that most American adults don't practice a level of grammar, punctuation and spelling good enough to pass a 4th grade English quiz. Most people are too lazy to use the spelling and grammar checks that come with their email and word processing software, or even to set those things to auto-correct and fix their mistakes as they type. Even after applying a fairly liberal allowance (read: lower standard) for any language issued via the Internet, I continue to be tragically underwhelmed and unimpressed by the verbal and written output of my fellow citizens. Alas, this is the same culture in which more than half of us (and when I say "us" I mean "not me") regard Sarah Palin as the personification of the American Dream, rather than the most painfully laughable moron ever to walk the stage of national politics, which is what she is. And we're talking about the same stage that has played host to such legendary assclowns as Dan Quayle and Jesse Jackson.
More noticeably, I find myself entertained but sometimes annoyed by the catch phrases and popular expressions that pass through our culture. "At the end of the day" just won't go away and I'm getting a little tired of it. Excessive use of the word "again" as an introduction to a point you're making for the first time in the conversation, or the verbal tandem "and again" as a transitional fragment... sure signs of an idiot, as displayed by many sports broadcasters and coaches:
Hey, coach Lipshitz, howdya feel about the outcome of today's game?
"Well, Harvey, the other team scored more points than we did, and again, that's one of the best strategies you can have, scoring more points than your opponent. If you can do that, you've got a real good shot at winning."
You don't say! What will you do differently next week?
"Again, we had some troubles on defense that we'll have to correct..."
Right up there with these moronic trends is the habit of ending an otherwise potentially sound and complete sentence with the word "so." Arguably the most intellectual coach in pro sports, Bill Belichick, does this in every press conference:
Coach, how will you prepare for San Francisco?
"There are a lot of things we have to work on, so. We're not playing particularly well on either side of the ball, so."
Was the loss to Miami a wake-up call for the team?
"It could be. I'd like to think we approach every game the same way, so. We've all been here a while and this is not the first game we've lost in the regular season, so."
So what?
And now for the item that's truly up my ass these days, probably the most annoying trendy phrase in modern history...
"I don't want to be telling tales out of school, but..."
WHAT THE SHIT DOES THAT MEAN? It makes no God damned sense at all. Are we supposed to tell tales in school but not out of school? I finished school in 1994. Has every tale I've told since violated some retarded social more that I just learned about? Who made this rule and more importantly, why? Where does this phrase come from?
From "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers:
"Betray confidences. It was originally said only of children, apparently children who let drop at home things they heard from schoolmates in the nature of gossip or happenings within a family. Now it applies to anyone who reveals confidences (usually not very weighty) he has received. The saying is old enough to have been picked up by William Tyndale in 'The Practyse of Prelates' (1530): 'So that what cometh once in may never out, for fear of telling tales out of school."
I don't care if it has origins dating nearly 500 years. So do killing people and lighting your own farts, and those things don't make any sense, either.
Do I sound angry? Do I look like a bitch? Maybe it's post-Patriots-getting-their-ass-kicked-by-the-horrendously-horrible-Miami-Dolphins melancholy. I'd like to end this post by letting Fitzy express my thoughts and feelings on the matter:
