A Minor Complaint

From time to time, I really, really wish I had a normal, sane, human temperature scale.  Generally speaking, it's really nice to run warm.  You seldom have to bother with heavy coats, thick scarves, gloves, mittens, etc and you can wig out the normals by going for a walk in forty-degree, windy weather in a tee shirt.  Far be it from me to thumb my nose at convenience, lazy creature that I am, but there's "running warm" and then there's "it's sixty-five degrees in here and if I was home alone I'd be making breakfast in the nude, and we all know what a dumb idea that is."

Seriously, whose bright idea was this? What did I do wrong, in some past life, to deserve this, huh?  Is there a polar bear somewhere who just can't get warm, no matter what he does?

Maybe this is why I know several people with Renoids, and most of my friends run really cold.   I accidentally stole their biological furnaces.  I didn't mean to, I swear! I'd give them back, (well, most of them - what can I say, I'm greedy,) if I had any idea how, because this is getting ridiculous.

You Should Stop That

The time has come, o denizens of the internet, to gather around for (surprise, surprise!) another exciting round of Cat's Linguistic Pet Peeves: Connotations Edition. Yes, I promise I feed it regularly, clean up after it and take it out for walks.  No, I'm not implying you need to do the same - though really, like a wandering cat, it could use as many welcoming homes as possible.

The peeve in question is the word "should," or rather its connotations.  It has its place, I'm sure; save for those whose sole purpose is hatred, most words do.  Given this tongue's plentiful synonyms, however, few terms have cause to crop up as often as "should."   At first glance, this doesn't seem much of an issue.  I'm not only a self-admitted grammar cop, but also a proud style vigilante,* but since I haven't quite lost touch with reality, the fact that not everyone has any requirement whatsoever to constantly consult their mental thesaurus remains firmly rooted in my mind.

The thing about all these synonyms, though, is that - as I've mentioned previously - they all have connotations, meaning that each serves a slightly different function, and "should" is one of those slightly nebulous ones whose common thread is that, unlike "need," "ought," or "want," it implies no concrete, motivational force for the person in question to perform whatever the deed might happen to be.  The only inherent impact that comes with it is guilt.  It's a passive-aggressive word; it's a word people use to make the person about whom it's being used, be this the speaker/writer or someone else, feel bad.  

May All Your Dreams Come True, God Help You

Once upon a thirty seconds ago, I thought I'd call this "Idio(t)ms II."  Immediately thereafter, my brain informed me in no uncertain terms that this particular kvetch deserves its very own title.  I hope it feels special.

"May all your dreams come true" really does merit a special place, not because I hate it - I don't - but because it's so freaking hilarious.  Please don't bother to tell me it refers to dreams as in goals, hopes* and ambitions; I know that.  It's just that it doesn't say that and I, to a degree taking after my mother's literalist bent, can't help snickering every time I encounter that turn of phrase.

May all your dreams come true!  Yeah, sure.  I really want a housemate to somehow get bacon grease and guacamole on every cubic inch of the kitchen, and I, without a chance to partake of whatever deliciousness they've concocted, have to clean it all up.  With a toothbrush.

That's just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.  Horrible bacon-and-guacamole incidents could not only happen in the real world, but do so without disastrous consequence, unless you count me royally chewing someone out for being an inconsiderate, oblivious pain in the butt disastrous which, if I've ever told you off, you might.  Regardless of  my verbal-flaying skills, however, we're not talking injury, death, psychological trauma (well, maybe,) or extensive property damage.

A Public Announcement

"Cat, I'm bored."

For a greeting, it has a lot of room for improvement.  For example, there's the total lack of....well, of actual greeting; no acknowledgement of the other person as an individual, no inquiry as to how their day has been or what you've been up to.  Nonetheless, my friend Krystal* used it every single time she started a conversation with me, be it over instant messenger, upon running into one another after a university class, or on one of our somewhat rare weekend forays to a bar or club.

"Cat, I'm bored."

The thing is, as friends, we knew one another well enough to forego the ritualistic hello-how-are-you, and as a person with a spine I'm quite capable of conversationally fending for myself, so, whatever this may say about me, it wasn't the self-centeredness that frustrated me to the point of, finally, allowing contact between us to fade.  Nope, it was the boredom.

Words, Words and More Words!

I have a confession.  The secret is a dark and dank one, which pains me greatly to admit.  Nonetheless, admit I must, least it haunt me to my very grave.

O my dearly beloved internet, I...am a hipster.

Yep, you read that right.  Me, yours truly, the guy who said something yesterday about hipster irony being an attempt to excuse simultaneous pretension and bad taste.  That guy.  Yeah.  I'm a hipster.  Double standards rock, huh?

The Theory of Linguistic Evolution by Natural Selection

A few days ago, my mother emailed me this BBC article on the ongoing malcontent between linguistic purists yearning to keep words true to their classical meanings, and the unwashed masses who use words - which are, after all, symbols - in new and rapidly changing ways.  The Internet, of course, has only accelerated these changes, and thus increased the fervor of the debate.

While this is hardly the first such article I've seen, it has left me a bit taken aback.  Do people really use "bemused" to mean "slightly amused?"  The article tells me it's a skunked term, or one over which there is such confusion that edited publications refrain from using it.  In my opinion, that's really sad.  English is kind of a screwed-up language, what with its kleptomaniacal habits ranging from causal pickpocketing of other Western European languages (some French terms just have that je ne sais quoi absent from more prosaic tongues, you know?) to armed robbery on the high seas.  The silver lining to this cloud of linguistic piracy is the incredible richness of terms - of synonyms, antonyms, connotations, nuances of thought and meaning, and as a lover of words, to see that wither is like watching a limb that could be healed instead wither from disuse.

The Birds and the Bees

Since it's late April, I'm willing to bet that, even in the more northerly portions of the Northern Hemisphere, spring is, as they say, in the air.  Yards, medians and meadows are redolent with the scent of flowers, warmth unfurls across the land, light breezes play through budding trees and birds sing out their joy to the rain-washed blue sky.

Oh wait, no, they don't.  The birds, in fact, sing out their personal ads to the rain-washed blue skies - unless you live in a wet climate, in which the skies are grey, or a desert, where they're not anything-washed and you've felt like you're living in a broiler oven for six weeks already.  No matter where you are, that flower-scented air is making itself felt in sneezes, runny noses, red and watering eyes, and asthma attacks.  In some places, this doesn't even come with the benefit of smelling flowers! I've lived in cities where all you smell is, well, city, even if you're standing right next to a median full of daffodils.

Follow Your Passion. Maybe.

Universities, high schools, and maybe even middle schools (Mom - adoptive mom, the one who lives in Dallas - homeschooled me until ninth grade) absolutely love having career assemblies.  In high school, they'll round you all up and herd you, kicking and screaming, or at least kvetching and moaning, into some musty, linoleum-floored room and talk at you for an hour.  In university, they'll just put up signs informing you that there is to be someone talking, for an hour, in a musty, linoleum-floored room, and you'll go because your conscience will inform you that you're at college to increase your chance for a good job so you'd better do all you can, dagnabbit.  Maybe this time you'll actually garner something of use!

At least, this was my train of thought, and you know what? I was dead wrong.  People had told me, for years, that college would be different.  I'd like it better because people would want to be there.  Sure enough, it was different.  People did want to be there! They wanted to be there because they hand out free snacks at these things!

Stupid Smart-People Tricks II

Once upon a time, my grandparents lived in Santa Cruz, California, in a house whose big kitchen windows looked west over the nearby ocean.  Grandpa, at the time working a civil service job requiring a daily commute, rose early to go to work.  Grandma just rose early because she was a morning person.  Thinking about this always leaves me slightly bemused.  I'm not entirely sure I believe in morning people.  So far as I'm concerned, they're like nutrias* or something.

Regardless, my grandmother, the mythical creature, voluntarily got up when Grandpa did and, by the time he'd driven off in a state of robotic stupor, functioning on automatic and/or caffeine, she'd brewed herself some nice hot tea to enjoy while she cleaned the kitchen, made herself breakfast, got ready for her own job, and presumably solved world hunger, found the meaning of life, and fed Schroedinger's cat as well.

Confusion

While I forget the name, bad blogger that I am, I do recall from my wild college days that there is a theory of linguistics (or maybe anthropology - I never claimed to have a good memory) stating that language shapes culture, rather than vice-versa.  This theory didn't turn out to hold a lot of water, but that someone conceived it to begin with demonstrates how central a place language takes in how we relate to the world.  One might say that language is a bridge; without it, the world still exists, and so do we.  We  might even relate to the world, but not as efficiently, quickly, or conveniently.  Of course, the world will still effect us because, let's say, the people on that side of the river all have hover-cars or something.*

Logically speaking, one wants better access to a highly frequented destination. Cities build better and bigger roads and bridges and, in an ideal world at least, fund more safe and efficient public transport.  Language, or at least the English language, grows synonyms, as if bridges grew like mushrooms.**

Stupid Smart-People Tricks

I have a scar on my thumb from a peanut butter sandwich.

No, seriously, I do, and I don't mean that I have a scar from the knife I used to cut the bread, or that I dropped the jar of jam and cut my hand on a glass shard, or - okay, so I'm out of normal, reasonable, this-might-conceivably-happen-in-a-world-that-makes-sense ways to injure yourself making a PBJ.

Idio(t)ms

Like spelling, idioms are just kind of fundamentally bizarre.  Unlike spelling, they're bizarre by definition: Merriam-Webster tells us an idiom is "a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words."  Now, this isn't to say they're entirely nonsensical.  It's just that most of them originate from some quirk of language so antiquated or context-specific that they might as well be entirely nonsensical.

As a result, they're frequently the butt of both hilarity and ire for people learning a new language.  If you tell a non-Francophone that someone is breaking your feet, they're more likely to be seriously concerned for your safety and the other person's sanity than they are to sympathise with you over that person being kind of irritating.  I can only imagine what English, possibly the most convoluted language in the world, is like for folks picking it up in adulthood.    I mean, my family and I have enough issues with English idioms, and we're all native speakers, college graduates, and proud bookworms.

Take "getting on like a house afire."  PLEASE take it!  It makes no freaking sense, and I'll have you know I take nonsense personally.  A couple of years ago, my girlfriend's house burned down in the middle of winter, and, to understate wildly, it was not a fun experience.  It was scary, inconvenient, expensive, frustrating, confusing, depressing, and involved far more of my girlfriend running around in two feet of snow in her bathrobe than is even remotely ideal.  

Why Would You Do That!?

Spelling is bizarre.  Scratch that, spelling is nonsensical.  Until about a century and a half ago, the English tongue didn't even have standard rules of spelling but then, as Terry Pratchett exposits in Good Omens, someone decided there Ought To Be Rules.  So rules there are, and, like most rules imposed to regulate social standards rather than prevent harm, they don't always make a lot of sense.

As a result, I count myself fortunate in having an instinct for spelling but refrain from pestering my loved ones with corrections.  If someone wishes to pay me to proofread, excellent!  That's what I'm here for.  Unsolicited critique, on the other hand - well, let's say I learned my lesson from spending roughly half of high school as a notorious know-it-all.

Lest You Think Me Snobbish

Regular cops have to defend themselves from stereotypes of donut and coffee-guzzling laziness, Taser-happy sadism and casual racism.  Grammar police get to field cries of  "stuck-up!" and "know-it-all!" from the great unwashed masses, and I have yet to figure out why.  I mean, just because we're inarguably better than you doesn't mean that we're snobs!

The thing is, though, we aren't, and I have no problem with that.  Can you imagine the pressure attendant upon any obligation to be perfect?  I'd turn to diamond, thus exponentially increasing my financial worth and completely killing my ability to type.  Furthermore, I'm pretty sure there's some internet law declaring that any post made to correct another person's spelling or grammar will itself contain some really egregious error (aside from the obvious "giving unsolicited criticism," which is a good way to ensure nobody will like you.)

If I went around grammar-policing online, I guarantee you it would take me about two seconds to spell "antidisestablishmentarianism" backward.  My tendency to type backwards when I'm tired (and I'm usually tired) is but the beginning of a laundry list of foibles illustrating that yours truly is, despite his internet persona of godlike perfection, only human after all.*

The Case of the Missing Comma

With the approach of my birthday in a few month's time, I've gone through the annual motions, such as "attempt to figure out if I've actually accomplished anything this year," "compile list of foods I've been craving," and "let my family know what I actually do want, aside from food and world peace."  It's honestly a pretty modest list, and has been so for years.  It has never, for example, included twenty-three cats.

Mind you, I like cats - it's just that I could never eat twenty-three at once!

No, no, seriously.  I love cats; I find them beautiful and funny and I vastly enjoy their company.  The two I live with prove an unending source of delight.  I just have no desire for more than, say, three.

This brings us to the importance of commas.

Generate a Random Question!

As I'm sure anyone using Blogger as a platform knows, the "Extended Info" portion of your profile offers several questions that, while not vital to one's function as a blogger, nonetheless bear some relevancy.  What are your favourite books?  Movies?  Music?  Good things to tell the internet, right?  Actual, conversation starter-ish things!

Imagine, then, my bemusement upon discovering that beneath those lurks the answer to a mystery which has plagued me since precisely never.  Namely, what happens when the oh-so-hilariously-out of the blue mainstay of tenth grade humour, "don't make me release the flying monkeys!", grows up and gets a job.  Fool that I am, what little thought I'd paid the question assumed that it went quietly to its grave along with Hot Topic pants and the deep-seated conviction that you're always right.

Newsflash: you aren't.  Especially if you're me.  Especially if you're me, and thence were, until this very morning, blithely certain that people - mature, adult people! People who design major blogging platforms! - outgrow the "randomness is hilarious" delusion.

There it lurks, at the bottom of Extended Info, the box labeled "Random Question."  A side note tells you you must save your profile to get a new question (you'd think they'd have some sort of widget to let it know if you haven't had any question before, and adjust the wording accordingly, perhaps with disproportionate excitement,) and you have to click a little check-box underneath, before saving, to tell it that you really do want to generate a new question.  Or a first question, as the case may be.  They make you work for your arbitrary nonsense.