Let's burn down the palace; I'll bring the kerosene

[fellmama]

Overheard in Reid just now:
"You smell good . . . is that patchouli?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, it's like my favorite!"
Damn hippies.

Other things that annoy me:
1) Misspelling of "y'all." It is not difficult. As y'all is a contraction of "you all," the apostrophe falls, logically, between "y" and "all." Yet even professors misspell it. Like a specific professor in an email I got the other day.
1a) "Y'all" is plural. Period. There are no grounds for debate here.
2) Pluralization with an apostrophe. Its so dumb when stupid folk's mispunctuate. It is, for that matter, dumb when SMART people mispunctuate. Maybe I should just give in and w'r'ite 'lik'e thi's! Ap'ost'rophe's f'or a'''ll'! The revolution commence's.
3) David Horowitz. Not just for his rabid, right-wing politics, but for his use of "data" as a singular verb subject: backed up by data that consists of profiles . . ..

Comments

[parksdh.livejournal.com]

I cant ever remember which version of its Ive got to apostrophize.

[superquail.livejournal.com]

I always thought that "it is" became "it's" and "owned by it" became "its" but I'm probably wrong.

[perdita-dream.livejournal.com]

You are right.

[superquail.livejournal.com]

I feel vindicated!!

[superquail.livejournal.com]

sorry I misspelled y'all.

[(Anonymous)]

How the hell do people misspell "y'all"? That one I cannot wrap my brain around.

"without further adieu" honestly makes me dumber every time I see it.

I have to write now.

PS: I almost misspelled "misspell" just now.

[(Anonymous)]

I forgot. This is Compton btw.

[superquail.livejournal.com]

I have seen it spelled ya'll or ya'all.

[perdita-dream.livejournal.com]

And to make it more confusing: "ya'll" is signular. "All ya'll" is plural.

[superquail.livejournal.com]

Yup. I love saying "all ya'll" it makes me sound so southern!

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

One more for the irritation files: Overuse or misuse of quotation marks. One of my professors does it all the freaking time, in such context as:

What "State" is this formation in?

The correct answer being 'Utah.' The way he writes it makes me think that the geological formation itself ought to be in a state of mind, or some other non-standard usage of the word state.

[superquail.livejournal.com]

Hey! You were mentioned in the Whitman Alumni magazine! I didn't know you were engaged, that's awesome!! Congratulations and much happiness to you and your betrothed!

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

Huh! I guess you wouldn't have seen when I posted in my LJ. I went ahead and put you on my friends list!

[parksdh.livejournal.com]

I like "data" better as a singular than a plural.

"This data..." = OK
"These data..." = OMGUGLY!!!!111eleven!

[aspend.livejournal.com]

I agree with Dan! Data should be singular, not plural. We speak English not latin so don't you be going off on me about how it is a latin word and data is plural... yadda yadda yadda. It is singular dammit and anyone who says otherwise is just being pretentious.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

Well then, why is "sheep" plural and singular? For my part, anyone who doesn't say "sheeps" is just being pretentious.

[perdita-dream.livejournal.com]

Your mom is pretentious.

well...

[silvercraft.livejournal.com]

Slang is just that, a gross mutilation of language. You live in America. Deal with it.