The fury and the sound

Good morning, and Happy February to one and all. I think it's strange that my desk calendar has no problem telling me when Administrative Professionals Day is, but they don't tell me that tomorrow is Groundhog Day. What gives? I have to know when United Nations Day and Canada's Civic Holiday are, but Punxsutawney Phil gets left out in the cold? I've seen my calendar's shadow, and it sucks.

The movie named after (and starring) that holiday has some fantastically quotable lines, by the way. The one that I say most often is Andie MacDowell's, "I bought you, I own you" from the last few minutes. I actually said that to my dog a few weeks ago, and I was delighted by the veracity of the statement. (Technically, we "donated" the fee to the shelter, but money exchanged hands, so I consider it a purchase of sorts still.) Oh sure, there are glaring plot holes in the movie - like that party/bachelor auction that only happened on that final incarnation of the day for some reason - but it's an enjoyable movie that I've seen way too many times. Not for a little while though, so I'll have to do something about that.

Today's post is not about what lines I like of what movies, however. I had a conversation with my favorite brother recently, and it led to some comments just meaty enough to warrant a post, I believe. We were talking about people with poor grammar and spelling, and he said this: "Oh, and I hate when people say 'acrosst' for some reason instead of just 'across.'" "I hate that too, and I hear it way more often than I should - from a lot of intelligent people too."

Before I get too far into this, please allow me to remind you that I am far from infallible in the world of grammar and proper usage. As I've said in this space before, I boldly split infinitives, end sentences with prepositions, use "I" instead of "me" when it's not the subject, use "they" instead of "he or she" often because it's less cumbersome, and write "Guess what?" even though it's a command and not a question. However, when I know something is wrong, hearing or seeing other people use it bothers me to a greater extent than it should. It angers me, and I don't think I can do anything about that fact. Grrrr. See? That's me being angry.

And so it was, in that conversation with my brother, than I continued talking about things that people say erroneously. I came up with three others off the top of my head that seemed to fit in the same category as "acrosst." That category which I've created is for things that intelligent people say incorrectly for no reason whatsoever. So let me be clear, gentle readers: if you say any of these next three things that I'm going to write, I do not think you're dumb. It's just that you've probably heard these things said and never stopped to wonder if they were correct or not. (I never thought twice about writing "Guess what?" until my friend Dusty texted me asking if it pissed me off when people did that.)

"The people who say 'acrosst' are the same people who say 'heighth' probably," I told him. "Huh?" "Instead of just 'height,' they put an H at the end so it sounds similar to length and width." He was quiet for a second, trying to figure out if he was one of the people of which I spake. He concluded that it may have slipped out from time to time. I told him that was ok, and that he wasn't alone. I can say with 100% certainty that I have never used that, but I may have accidentally typed it at some point since my fingers do weird things on their own (like typing Amberica instead of America).

"Oh, and you know what else those people say? 'Incidences.'" "What's wrong with that one?" "I know, I was guilty of this one at some point too." I went on to explain that an event is an incident. The plural is incidents. Incidence, while sounding extremely similar, is the "rate of occurrence or influence," such as "a high incidence of crime." Thank you yet again, Merriam Webster. So when people say that something happened on "several incidences," they're just wrong. Still sound right to you? That's probably because "instance" and "instances" are right and have a similar sound. Confused? Well, just try to remember that "incidents" is probably what you mean if you hear yourself accidentally saying "incidences."

Lastly in this category, I come to one that I definitely said incorrectly throughout the majority of my high school career. Once again, it was Dusty who pointed out the error of my ways. If a teacher or office wanted to see a student who was currently in a class, they (he or she?) would issue a yellow piece of paper called a summons. We all got very used to that noun, so much so that we turned it into a verb when there was a perfectly good verb waiting there already. "He summonsed me during fourth period," I'd say. "No, he summoned you," Dusty would reply. "He chose to summon you with a summons." I saw his point, and the verb is actually "to summon." Isn't language just grand?

So, my friends, how many of you say how many of those things? Don't be shy; English is freaky and it would be even weirder if you always spoke completely correctly.

Knowing that I find things about words of great interest, my loving mother-in-law sent me some fun facts to look over. One that I had heard before but appreciated greatly was this: "If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find that letter A?" The answer (which I guessed correctly upon first hearing this and thinking about it for a bit) is "one thousand." I find that to be pretty cool.

Switching topics now, we have the Superbowel game coming up this weekend. If they're gonna be sticklers with their copyright of putting "bowl" and "super" together, I'm going to liken it to a massive shit and still get my point across just fine. In any case, I saw former player Howie Long on t.v. talking about the Superbowel. At one point, he said that something was "the white elephant in the room." Really? There's a gag gift in the room? I thought that was a great combination of phrases and worthy of a mention.

Here's something that I was going to save for another post, but it's bothering me enough that I wish to mention it now instead. While flipping around out of boredom on the tube, my lovely wife and I came acrosst (just kidding) a celebrity dating show called "Rock of Love" starring former Poison frontman Bret Michaels. Oops, my bad, it was "Rock of Love 2." And that is what gets my goat, people. I have heard of three (count them, three) dating shows now that are sequels to the original. Please allow me to clarify: I don't mean like another season of "The Bachelor" in which they find another shockingly-single dude and surround him with shockingly-single chicks to find true love. No, I'm talking about the shows like "Rock of Love 2," "I Love New York 2," and the newly announced "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequlia 2." These are programs that have already happened with the same protagonist and presumably already terminated with the formation of a happy couple.

By having sequels, they are sending two loud and clear signals. One, we clearly failed our "main objective" of finding true love for this person. Two, this is all bullshit and more for entertainment value than anything we purport it to be about. Now that I have seen about two minutes of one of these shows, I know what I missed the first time around, and I sure as hell know what I'll be intentionally missing going forward. The WGA strike needs to end soon, because if they can't even come up with enough original reality crap to keep something on the airwaves, then our television future is looking even bleaker than I imagined.

Here's a random thought I had recently: does anyone get "on the schneid?" (I've never spelled that word before, so I'm using my Jewish heritage to guess to the best of my ability.) Are we all born on thousands of unique schneids, just waiting to get off of them? Or do the individual schneids come along with the beginning of new things? Sorry, I know those are heavy philosophical questions, but they're ones I feel are begging to be asked.

Ok folks, it's time to get the Car Watch party started.

My dad saw a plate and sent me a text message about it. "GRLYBOI," it read. To me, there are only three reasonable explanations for this. One, the young man is gay and proud to announce that to the world. Two, it's an odd nickname that has stuck throughout the years. Or three, someone's fucking with him. I'm gonna go with door number one, although my dad didn't report whether there was an accompanying rainbow sticker or not. (I can't help but mention the incredible difference in public perception between a young girl who enjoys more typically-male activities and a young boy who enjoys more typically-female activities. For the girl, it's cute and she's a tomboy. For a boy, well, there really aren't any cute or nice-sounding names for that situation. I guess that's where GRLYBOI comes into play.)

I'm not the best with identifying makes and models of cars, but I'm pretty sure it was a red Camaro that passed me with a plate reading, "AN EZ A." Maybe I jump to conclusions, but that sounds a lot like a professor who is willing to change someone's grade for a little dough on the side. Seriously, what else could that be? Did someone's dad promise him or her a new car for a 4.0 semester? That's all I've got. Comment away if you think it's anything else.

I also saw a license plate frame that read on the top, "Have you seen our..." I took a second to ponder what the bottom might be, but I came up blank. After a second, I gave up and looked: "Dad's new car?" I don't know, have I? If that's it, then yes. More importantly, you know I have because how else would I be reading that? If that's not his car, then how the hell do I know if I've seen it or not? Is there something easily identifiable about said car that would cause me to remember having glanced upon it? Here's one for you: Have you seen my...middle finger?

My homey Rockabye saw either a sticker or a frame that caught me off guard: "My other car is my feet." At first this angered me and I was all set to launch into a rant about how that's technically impossible. But then I thought more about it and realized that this person might actually be making fun of everyone else's sticker by saying, "I only have one car. If it breaks, I'm shit out of luck and walking to work. So suck it." If that's the reason behind it, then I applaud instead of curse.

Lastly, my Bratty Kid Sister called to tell me about a special American flag license plate that said, "ME 4 GOD" on it. My first response was that it seemed very egotistical to me. Like, "Wow, I really want to get something good for God this year, but I'm out of ideas. Oh, I know: Me, baby, me." BKS said that to her, it looked like the person was campaigning. "Vote for me in the next election for God," if you will. I think that's awesome. Aim high, right? Good eye, fake sis.

And that is all for me, my friends. Happy Birthday tomorrow to my friend Kareem, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and week until we meet up here again. As always, please write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. Shaloha, and good luck seeing your shadows.