I’m the first to admit that I’m easily irritated.  At least once a day (though I’ll admit that number can go as high as 40 or 50 times a day), I’ll complain to Joanna about something that really “irritates the shit out of me” (an expression which is pretty foul if you take a moment to visualize it, so a big, spastic, double thumbs up to Joanna for staying married to me).  But I grew up in New York, and I can be pretty snotty, so that’s pretty much to be expected.

The irritation I can handle – to an extent.  What needs to stop, though, are those things that go beyond irritation, pushing me to a bad, bad place filled with evil, and darkness, and with Billy Ray Cyrus music on an endless loop in the background. So, if elected king, aside from providing free barbecue to all my minions, I would outlaw:

The Following Expressions:

1. Throwing anything under the bus, as in: “You dick. A few more Bud Lights and I could have banged that bitch if you hadn’t thrown me under the bus and told her I wasn’t a member of a NASCAR pit crew.”
2. Stepping up to anything, as in: “If you don’t step up, you aren’t going to sell your quota of extended warranties this month, Roderick.” Or “I really have to step up my game if I want to make the badminton finals.”
3. Anything from hell, as in: “Man, that was the prostate exam from hell.”

The Following Entertainment:

1. Any song sung by Lady Gaga or that talentless skank from the horrible Black Eyed Peas.
2. Paula Abdul on any television show, unless she gets back on heavy narcotics so instead of being just stupid, she’s stupid and hilarious.
3. Anything with Criss Angel, anywhere, any medium, any time.  Unless it’s a death match with David Blaine.
   

   Criss Angel. When I'm king, you'll never have to see this again.

4. Pseudo-punk rock versions of Christmas carols.  In fact, any modern cover of a Christmas carol.  In fact, Christmas carols in general, what with the herald angels, and decking the halls, and the three kings, and the golden rings and shit.

The Following Miscellaneous Irritating Crap:

1. The compounding of words to make new, stupider, words, or the complete invention of said stupid words based on an existing word.  This includes:
   1. Ridonculous
   2. Chillax
   3. Frenemy
   4. Fantabulous
   5. Anything-tastic

   Note: Compound names like Bennifer and Brangelina are also banned, with no exceptions,ever.

1. The use of “man” or “bro” as a prefix. This includes, but is not limited to:
   1. Bromance
   2. Mandles
   3. Manscaping
   4. Manswers (I’m talking to you, Spike TV)
   5. Broner

   The only exception to this rule is my own expression (because it’s mine, and it’s not technically using “man”) “mammal toe” to indicate too-tight pants on a man that causes his bulging, seam-split ball sack to be clearly visible.  Because you really need a name for that shit.

I’d also propose a constitutional amendment (though being king, I’d probably just chuck the Constitution to allow for more freedom in my kingly shenanigans) banning the following people from ever saying anything loud enough for anyone else to hear, in any place, at any time:

1. Andy Rooney
2. Glenn Beck
3. Ariana Huffington
4. Any Backstreet Boy
5. Gloria Allred
6. That chick from “The Nanny”
7. The Pope

Anyone that knows me knows that this barely scratches the surface of what pisses me off, but I just needed to get that shit off my chest.  Because no one likes shit on their chest.  I mean, other than Germans.

This is a post from: Bradford Schmidt's blog, Bone In The Fan.

Shit That’s Got To Stop

What is it about this nation’s highest office?  Why do we keep getting Presidents that seem to have problems (albeit to varying degrees)  with the English language?  No matter how smart these guys are, every one of them seems to struggle with simple grammar and vocabulary.

These two books should be issued to each President upon election. Particularly the one on the left (but I'd suggest making it the skinny soft-cover version: easier to carry everywhere).

President Obama is just the latest guy to get the job who seems to have a few issues with his mother tongue.  This time, two mistakes that I find particularly annoying are coming up: the use of “I” when “me” is correct, and disagreements between subjects and verbs.  The President made the former mistake early in his first press conference with this comment:

“President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to meet with him and first lady Laura Bush.”

Dude (check me out, all familiar with the President, calling him “dude”), it’s “Michelle and me”.  You use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object.  This is non-negotiable. It’s a common mistake though, and the general consensus seems to be that it stems from having been corrected as a young child: a kid might say “Stevie and me are going to play now”, and a parent might respond “honey, it’s Stevie and I” (to which my wise-ass kids might answer “no dad, you’re not playing with Stevie, I am” – which is just one more reason I love my kids).

But that’s a bullshit excuse.  Either you know the correct usage or you do not.  This particular mistake seems to be made most often by people trying to sound smarter than they are: you’ll hear it a lot in bad reality television for example (oh don’t get your knickers in a twist; I don’t think Obama is worried that the American people believe he’s stupid).  It also happens when people think that using “me” just sounds wrong – which it kind of does, I suppose.  If you don’t know better.  Perhaps the President thought most Americans weren’t smart enough to know the correct usage (I fear that might actually be accurate – perhaps if we replaced those useless hotel-nightstand Bibles with “The Elements of Style” we could make some headway here), and didn’t want to sound wrong to them. Regardless, it’s still embarrassing.

Easily as bad is the subject/verb disagreement issue, which happens more than enough to have become irritating to me.  For example, I heard the President say this during a recent G20 press conference:

“…each country has its own quirks and own particular issues that a leader may decide is really really important; something that is non-negotiable for them. “

Um, that should have been “…that a leader may decide are really, really important; some things that are non-negotiable for them”.  The verb is referring the plural noun “issues”.  The word “is” is singular.  And while I know this isn’t an earth-shaking problem, he does it fairly often when answering questions off the cuff and it just bugs the shit out of me.

Overall though, when it comes to grammar and vocabulary, President Obama would certainly pass the simple test I suggest at the close of this piece, and he is admittedly a huge upgrade: a veritable Princeton English professor compared to other past Presidents (not to mention vice-Presidents), some of whom simply murdered the language.  I won’t even bother with listing some of the spastic sentences Bush 43 puked into microphones over his eight years, because all I really need to say is one word: Nuke-you-ler.  You fucking moron.  Really.  Wasn’t there one damn adviser on your staff that had the stones to tell you how fucking stupid you sounded every time that word worked its way past your frat boy smirk?

And Clinton….well let’s just say that Obama’s mistaken usage of the word “is” doesn’t compare to the fact that Clinton seemed not even to know the definition of the word.  Nor, apparently, the definition of the phrase “sexual relations”.  And he clearly misunderstood what cigar box meant.

"Hey darlin', put down that bowl of ambrosia and slide on over here next to Big Bill, will ya? And be a sweetheart and bring me one of them big ol' cigars, too."

Those are just a couple of examples from the the last three office holders; I’m sure there are plenty more.  And really, you don’t even need to screw up a sentence to abuse the language.  Lyndon Johnson deserves an honorary award for using the language when he just shouldn’t: he’d converse with his staff while taking a dump with the bathroom door open.  No, I’m not kidding.

Hey You! Come watch me poop!

Where I live, you can’t get away from poor grammar, spelling, and vocabulary.  The misuse of apostrophes is epidemic (as in: apostrophe’s), my son’s second grade teacher seems to be unaware that Austin isn’t just the name of a local dinner joint, and there’s actually a popular restaurant nearby called Nick’s Tomatoe Pie (no one caught that?  Not the owner, the printer, the sign maker?).  And yes, I’m aware that I too occasionally break some rules of grammar when I write (um…..creative license…every time, yes).

But I, for one, think that we ought to avoid electing anyone to the office of President or vice-President (don’t think I’ve forgotten about you Dan Quayle)  that does not have a command of the English language at least equal to that of my twelve year old daughter.

This is a post from: Bradford Schmidt's blog, Bone In The Fan.

Grammar and Vocabulary