Keeping It Clean...Best Reason Why

Say, in the future, that I criticize Z.Y.X.: A person, an organization, a whatever.

I will keep it clean and keep out the obscenities and profanities: The fucks and shits and goddamns and hells.

It's not because I'm a prude. It's for this reason:

If I use those profanities and obscenities, then Z.Y.Z. will try to discredit my criticism by concentrating on how I said it to deflect attention away from what I said.

Declining Versus Refusing

I used to be a newspaper reporter and wrote for a living. Therefore, I have an eye that's sharper than average for the use of the English language.

For example, when a public official was asked to comment about an incident, especially one that was controversial, he/she would be said to decline comment.

That is, his or her reply would be polite. It would be usually "No thanks" or "I have nothing to say about it."

But if he or she refused comment, it was impolite.

If the reporter asked the person face to face, he (it usually is a male) could knock the notebook from the reporter's hand and say, "Fuck you for asking me about that shit!"

IF the reporter was asking the question over the telephone, he'd say the same thing and then slam down the phone.

Devil In The Flesh

Somewhat related to the post below.

Overheard recently in a restaurant:

Teresa: Oh that Susie! She's a terrible person! She's worse than Hitler! She's the Devil in the flesh!

Jennifer: Oh, Terrie, she's not that bad.

Teresa: Okay, Jennie. That Susie's a bitch.

Jennifer: WATCH YOUR MOUTH! DON'T YOU EVER CALL A WOMAN A BITCH AROUND ME!

Just Want You To Know

It's spring, and Mary Jane's back.

Conjugation

Speakers of the English language, be glad most verbs aren't conjugated like the verbs ring (ring, rang, rung) and sing (sing, sang, sung).
.
One of those verbs is fix. Instead of fix, fixed and fixed, it would be fix, fax, and fux.

And that would be fucked.

So I guy can never tell you I fux it and you think O really?

Plain ... Beautiful ... What Is It?

I was surfing a forum on the web/internet/whatever last month when I saw this statement from a guy to his gal:

Yeah, it's plain to see, baby, you're beautiful ...

When I read that, I thought WTF? Plain and beautiful are two different things: Very different.

Damn. Just another example of cliched and lazy writing from automatic thinking.

Now if he had said It's easy to see, baby, you're beautiful, it would still be a cliche. But at least it wouldn't be contradictory.

Three Observations About English

1. Offensive tackles are misnamed. Their purpose on is to keep the ball carrier from getting tackled.

2. Women are often compared, sometimes unfavorably, to cats. But if you want to truly insult a woman, call her a bitch.

3. The K sound (as in Kansas) is represented in four letters of the alphabet: C, K, Q, and X.

As long as these differences and discrepancies are around, I'll never get tired of reading about English. Often, I'll write about things like that in this blog.

Gerunds And Consequences

He was fucking her.

As she lay flat on her back, he held her ankles and spread her legs as wide as possible. He liked it that way because it showed that he was fucking her, that his cock was going deep in her pussy.

You could say he was drilling her, hammering her, nailing her, plowing her, pounding her, screwing her, spearing her: All of those gerunds of aggression, if not violence, often used to describe sexual intercourse, especially when one partner wants to orgasm without concern for the sexual desires of his (usually) partner.

As he said, "Take it all, you hot little fuck. You know you want it..."

He came.

Three years later, he met his son...the one he had fathered that moment...the one he never knew he had...

So he must have plowed her, because he had planted a seed that had grown.

An Example Of Narcissism

This thought came to me suddenly about two hours ago.

An example of self interest is this. If a tornado's coming, you worry about you, your loved ones, and your stuff.

An example of narcissim is this. If a tornado's coming, you worry about how it's going to mess up your hair.

I tried to show the difference in intent: Seriousness versus frivolity.

Maybe it works for you. Or it might not. It works for me now.

Roses From Ashes? Not So Fast...

Somewhere on the net I read a post by a woman who changed her life for the better.

She said and I quote:

From the ashes grew a rose of a self, dedicated to a new life.

I thought: If you want to improve your life, that's okay with me. And it's a nice metaphor, if a little too cliche for me.

But...but do roses grow all that well in ashes?

So I surfed the net, especially for sites about growing roses. One rose grower said he would use ashes on roses only once or twice a season because it would interfere with the PH of the soil. He also said he would do it only if the ground was too acidic.

Therefore..adequate metaphor, if cliched, but bad botany.

Goodbye For Now

I'm sure you've heard of the old saying, "See you later, alligator!"

But I found recently that there are other ways to say goodbye and use animals in the salutations:

• Keep it real, spotted seal;
• Oh take care, gruff black bear;
• Lotsa luck, you silly duck;
• All best wishes to little fishes;
• Gotta go, buffalo;
• In a few, cockatoo;
• Bye bye, fruit fly;
• See you soon, you big baboon;
• Peace out, river trout;
• Good day, sting ray;
• Another time, porcupine;
• Ciao, brown cow;

And my favorite:

• I bid adieu, mon caribou.

Some Short Subjects

I post these here as one post because they fit better this way than as separate entries.

One
These words have two things in common:

Snuff, sniff, snort, sneeze, snow, snark, snide, snap, snag, snafu, snake, snatch, sneak, snipe, snicker, snug, snub, sneer, snob, snoop, sneak and snap.

Two
When I surf the Internet, I often wonder which one is a bigger waste of time, money, effort and space:

• Sites full of half-naked women;
• Sites full of half-baked opinions.

Three
If the patterns in the wall paper start talking to you...instead of ignoring them...talk back to them...hey, they might be friendly...and you need all the friends , crazy or not, that you can get to make it through this world ...

How Inappropriate!

Whenever I hear the word inappropriate, I often let myself get bent out of shape with annoyance.

If something is inappropriate, it's a truly awful thing that shouldn't be said or done. A good example is child molestation. Another is a marriage that's loveless and full of unfaithfulness.

But more often, people call something inappropriate if it's minor and probably just embarrassing. Two examples are getting a speeding ticket or farting in church.

It's used to keep people in line and another example of crippling middle-class respectability. And if you consider those things to be heinous and unmentionable, you can imagine the efforts to ignore and forget and repress the awful things and the resistance to dealing with them.

When I think of the whole appropriate/inappropriate thing, I'm like Winston Smith in 1984 when he said, "I hate purity and I hate goodness."

Some New Lingo

Sometime in August, I came across two new on the internet. I didn't know them before and I present them to you now.

The first is TL;DR. It's short for Too Long; Didn't Read.

I think it should be DR;TL. I'll explain why in this dialog:

Deuce: I didn't read it.

Ace: Why not?

Deuce: It was too long.

That gives the action -- or inaction -- and the reason behind it. And some people say you should give a reason for your actions or inactions only if someone asks you. TL;DR gives the reason first, as if apologizing for the action or inaction.

This examples shows that there is a difference in how you word things and the intent behind them.

The other is the abbrevation TITS OR GTFO. It means the poster in a thread (cyber talk for conversation, especially at a forum site) should show a picture of a woman's naked bosom or go away.

I found that expression a little too vulgar. I would reword it as:

My good sir (or good woman), please present a picture of a bare bosom (or your bare bosom) or vacate the premise immediately!

See how much more classy that is?

This Is The Way ...

Recently, this old nursery rhyme came to mind:

This is the way we wash our clothes,
wash our clothes, wash our clothes.
This is the way we wash our clothes
So early in the morning.

Suddenly these riffs, based on the catch X-the-Y pattern, came to mind:

Brush the bat
Hang the fools
Shoot the moon
Shoot the fool
Fuck the girl
Burn the bridge
Beat the meat
Lick the whip

After those, no more came to mind.

Three Examples

Here are three entries about language use and abuse. I decided to put them into one post instead of three different ones because they were a little too short to stand by themselves.

One
Recently, I've been tempted to use the word proper like the English do -- as a synonym for correct or best, as in "The proper way to fix the motor is ..."

Americans, I find, use the word proper as a synonym for the way things should be done -- as a moral judgment. It's close to the use of the words appropriate and propriety. To me, they mean a coerced conformity done out of fear.

Two
An abbrevation I'm sure you've seen on the internet is WTF -- short for what the fuck.

An eight-year-old girl thought it stood for why, that's funny. Her older brother told her that -- surely out of the goodness in his heart.

Somewhat related, I thought FTW always meant fuck the world. It turns out that it also means for the win.

Three
As for using about or of in the following context, which is better?

Many people say, "I know about it." It's heard more often in everyday talk.

Some people write, "I know of it." It's more literary, but sounds pretentious if it's spoken.

i, i, i ...

This week, Apple admitted that there had been a data breech in some of its iPads. Because of it, hackers could've gotten information for about 114,000 people who owned one.

When I heard about the breech, this line of thought came to mind:

iPad

iPod

iPhone

I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot no deputy

I love a parade

Iraq

Iroll

Iran

I did it all for love

I did it all for you, baby

I spy with my bloodshot eye a drunken sailor passing by

I is the first letter of it, is and if -- also of irony and ivory

I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth --
no, not there --
It went into the heart of my mortal enemy.
Death!
Kill!
Death!
Kill!
DEATH!

Get The Definitions Right!

This post is for my fellow males -- especially the foolish or stupid ones, who usually are willfully so, and often are belligerent too.

They call any effeminate man a faggot.

There's a difference.

If an effeminate man is gay, he's a faggot.

If an effeminate man is straight, he's a sissy.

A Freaking Fuck Show

I've written before about the word fuck and its use, especially as a profanity.

As I was going through some old magazines, I saw this recommendation about it as a profanity. It was in the May 2009 issue of Esquire:

In too many cases, it's just a signifier of unhappiness -- "fucking pain in the ass," "fucking bullshit," "Al fucking Gore" -- with no potency. For optimal impact, use fuck sparingly and with unusual imagery ("Did he just finger-fuck me?") or reverse the conventional forms ("What a freaking fuck show"); alternatively, multiply it ("fucking four-eyed fuck.")

(Emphasis mine.)

A Meandering Conversation

Ace: You know what?

Deuce: What?

Ace: I'm pretty white -- or fair skinned, to be exact.

Deuce: That's true.

Ace: So I've decided not to get a tan this summer. I'm going to be working on my pale.

Deuce: That's nice to know.

Ace: I also created a new phrase.

Deuce: What is it?

Ace: It's "Zee this off." It means "Let's end this, quit doing this, especially because it's boring." It comes from Z, the last letter of the alphabet and ZZZ, the sound of someone snoring.

Deuce: Damn, you're creative!

Ace: I got this question for you. If a guy had a glass eye, false teeth, and a hip replacement -- how much of a cyborg is he?

Deuce: Hard to tell.

Ace: I forgot. The guy also wears glasses and uses a hearing aid.