Two Tense
Now Playing: Unreal Tournament 2004
Topic: Communications
Hi. I'm a stickler for grammar. Not just any grammar, mind you... proper grammar. I hate it when I see misplaced apostrophes, or incorrect spelling, and I mentally kick myself and have to verbally correct myself every time I end a sentence with a preposition.

The lovely and talented Mrs. Spidor and I walked down to the library yesterday (she wanted to get out into the sun and I wanted to punish my bad knee for hurting when it should have been functioning as well as its twin). While there, she showed me an interesting tome, entitled "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. It further describes itself as the "zero tolerance approach to punctuation." We checked it out of the library.
See, my wife is not a great speller (although she is much smarter than I), and her skills lie not in the field of grammar. She does, however, understand my feelings of irritation when I see something so terrible as a person using "it's" (contraction of "it is") when they mean "its" (possessive pronoun of "it"), and, similarly, "your" (possessive pronoun of "you") when they mean "you're" (contraction of "you are"). So she knew I'd want to see and read this book. She was right.

It's not easy to be a stickler for punctuation. You try to help people, and they call you names for mentioning that they aren't supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. Then they use the old joke "Okay, where's the gas station at, asshole?" At that point, all you can do is say "Well, you go down to the corner, wait until the sign says 'dont walk,' and then jump out into the intersection." (By the way, the sign should have an apostrophe, and say, "don't walk", but it doesn't, because if it did, the sign would need to be bigger, and more expensive, and my taxes would go up. I'm happy to ignore the poor grammar there, proving that I can be bribed to ignore poor grammar. But I digress.)
I was playing an online RPG, and someone shouted that someone else was "retarted." I pointed out that someone that can't even spell the word "retarded" probably shouldn't be using it to insult someone else's intelligence. They called me a "grammar Nazi."

Think about that. A "grammar Nazi."

The implication there is that using proper grammar is so vile, so hateful, and so insidiously bigoted, that only a Nazi would use it, and encourage its use by others.

What the Hell happened? Well, what happened is that people get by on "good enough grammar" so much that they forget that proper grammar is the difference on their resume between "hired" and "moron." They don't want to bother to learn the proper grammar, so instead of taking that high road, they denigrate anyone else that does. That's like saying "I was wrong, but you're evil, so your opinion is worthless. That cancels out that I was wrong, and now I'm right, and you're still evil." Then they keep using the poor grammar. They think, "Well, people know what I mean."

No. No, we don't know what you mean, because, see, we're not mind readers. That's why punctuation exists... because we're not freakin' mind readers. If you want us to guess, okay, I'm game. But don't blame me, or call me stupid, because when you said, "I want a couple of minutes to think about it" I only gave you two. See, that's what "couple" means.

They will also challenge with "What do you care?" Why do I care? Because I don't want you to come back later and say "Why didn't you do what I said, you idiot? I told you to do something different! Can't you understand English?" Well, I did do what you said. It's not my fault you didn't use the proper grammar to explain it, causing me to believe you meant something else. And yes, I can understand English. Do you think you'll begin using it soon?

We live in an age where people use words interchangeably, but which are not properly used in that manner. They often have similar, but different, meanings, so people just plunk whatever sounds best to their ear in place and then sally forth. (No, it's not "sally fourth." That would mean "to go after 3 others have gone." It is "sally forth," meaning "to go forward.")
One extreme visitation to this approach is when people stopped using the term "greater than" and started using "greater then." Somehow, at some point in the not-too-distant past, it became popular to confuse the words "than" and "then." "Than" is a word used in a comparative ("I'd rather have a million dollars than ten dollars.") "Then" is a word used to describe a point in time ("That was then, this is now."), or perhaps a conditional ("If there's enough gas in the car, then we can go to Six Flags.").
So if you tell me "I'm smarter then you," I'll think one of two things; that you're not smarter than me, or I'll be waiting for you to tell me what I'm supposed to do once you get smarter.

And I'm not trying to be pretentious about this. I'm not trying to feel superior. I make mistakes too. And believe me, I'm harder on myself than I am on anyone else when I make those mistakes. But I'm not doing it out of some kind of weird, aggressive sanctimony. I'm trying to understand what's being said to me, and make sure that what I'm saying is also understood. The written language is the most useful tool that has ever been invented. It allows written, persistent communications that permit history, learning, and the invention of every other tool in existence, with the possible exceptions of the wheel and the lever. Even then, it's easier to let someone know about wheels and levers if you can write it down and draw a picture. The written language is your toolbox for communication. Would you use a socket wrench when you need a screwdriver?

Please. When building, repairing, home improvements, or writing an important letter, use the right tool for the right job.

I'm Sick Of Electronic Secretaries
Topic: Communications
I'm tired of calling people and getting their answering service because they don't feel like answering the phone, and they'll just 'get back to whomever it is.' I mean, once in a while is understandable. But there's some people that I call that I get their answering service before there's a single ring, which means their phone's turned off. And I leave messages, but I usually don't get a reply. And I don't mean in the next 5 minutes, I mean in the next 5 days.

Look, doing that once in a while is fine, but every day? The message is "No matter why you're calling, whomever you are, neither you nor your reason are important enough for me to answer my phone. Leave a message, so I can ignore that too."

The alternative is that I'm such a loser, nobody wants to talk to me. This is a possibility too, so I'll spare everyone the agony and just stop calling. That'll make us both happier.

Of course, the next step is to stop communicating completely, including no longer posting to this 'blog. Which is fine, because I'm beginning to suspect that nobody reads this except my wife anyway, and I talk to her every day. There would be no huge loss.

Maybe I should just drop this. I'm tired of talking to myself; maybe I need to just shut the hell up and leave 'blogging to people that actually get read.

In fact, why bother posting this, even. Meh. I can either click 'back' or 'post.' Same number of clicks. Might as well post one last time.

Bye.