Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Please stop.

So I have been having the HARDEST time coming up with things to blog about. Apparently when you sit around and watch hours of TV everyday, you run out of interesting experiences to write about. I thought about writing about how I shadowed a terrorist and then had to shoot him in the basement of my boss. But then I realized that that was from an episode of NCIS and not actually from my own life. My own life, it turns out, is fairly boring these days and offers no blogging material. It's very irritating.

As I was pondering blogging ideas for tonight and getting more and more irritated that all the best ideas have been taken by all the shows I DVR, I got a text from my friend Hannah who was letting me know that she was watching the Kate Gosselin interview on TV tonight and she was thinking of me because Kate kept asking questions and answering them herself. You know what I'm talking about: "Am I sad that it ended this way. Of course. Will I pick up the pieces and carry on? Without a doubt. Will be difficult? Absolutely." Hannah lived with me for two years and knows how irritating I find this particular method of conversing. And I've blogged about that and other pet peeves before so I know YOU all know how I feel about it, too. But Hannah's text got me thinking about other pet peeves that I need to discuss.

So can I share some more with you? Trust me, it will make us closer . . .


Apostrophe's . . . apostrophes' . . . apostrophes . . .
Can we just get on the same page here? Apostrophes are not used to make something plural.

EVER.

Not here . . .


Not here . . .


And not here . . .

So stop doing it.

You are not celebrating Thanksgiving with the Palmore's, you are celebrating it with the Palmores. Please learn this distinction.

Or find somewhere else to go for Thanksgiving.


It is what it is.
What does that mean? People say this ALL THE TIME as if they are making some profound commentary about life. And, frankly, I never know what they mean when they say it. Don't get me wrong, I play along - I nod in agreement and say something like "Yep!" or "I hear ya!" or "Well, it sure ain't what it ain't." - but the truth is that I don't get it. I can say "I don't really understand why she acted that way when we were talking to her" and the person I'm talking to will say "Well, it is what it is." Really? Okay. Weeeeeeeeeelllllllll, that doesn't really help . . .

One of my goals in life is to destroy this expression. And if I can take down skinny jeans while I'm at it, that's just a bonus.


Supposably.
Honestly, I shouldn't have to write about this one. We should all know it. If we didn't learn about it in grammar class, if we didn't just "sound it out" and realize there's no "b" in the word, then we SURELY learned about it by watching Friends. You know what scene I'm talking about - the one where Chandler says that he hopes he hasn't met the love of his life and then dumped her because she pronounced it "supposably" and then the scene ends with Joey alone in the room trying to figure out what's wrong with that pronunciation: "Supposably. Supposably. Did they go to the zoo? Supposably . . ."

But if you somehow missed it, let's sound it out together: SUH - POSE - ED - LEE.

See? No B. Anywhere.

You don't say "admittably" instead of "admittedly", do you? So why the unfair treatment of "supposedly." Please work on this, friends. You know who you are . . .

But, hey - at the end of the day, I still love you. Even if you u'se apostrophe's incorrectly' or say supposably with pride, I'll love you through it. And, who knows, maybe one day you can get past these grammatical hurdles and make the world a better place. But even if you don't . . .

It is what it is.

7 comments:

Phyllis Eddings said...

Preach on, sister! Although, I suspect that preaching is to the choir, at least with me.

Unknown said...

O man! I really do hate those grammatical errors but it does make me slightly nervous to use words with more than 2 syllables around you. I think I will even stop adding punctuation to anything I write to you just so you might think its ok that it's wrong because I'm not putting any punctuation into the correspondance.
Just for something else to make you angry. What about exspecially?!

Catherine said...

Oh yeah!! I forgot about exspecially!! Good call, Christen!

Ps - glad my blog isn't being filtered at your office anymore . . . :)

Joley said...

I love you Catherine! Obliterating punctuation errors across the world, one typo at a time! You should have been Myrtle Frag the Grammar Nag for Halloween! By the way, Jerry has a relative that says supposively!!

Emma said...

OMG!!!! Awesome!!! Loved it! Hysterical & right on!! :)

Anonymous said...

I have to add Libary and aksed to that list.

KTurbo said...

One of the worst that has even made it in to the dictionary (god forbid) is "irregardless". I cringe every time I hear that one!

Karen