Thursday, April 22, 2010

What I Hate

I've been stressed out and not sleeping well and so have been living on caffeine and adrenaline for the last couple months and am a little more edgy and prone to irritation than my usual bright and cheery misanthropic self.  Anyway, I have 2 things in today's issue of what I hate that are making me unhappy. 

First up is unnecessary punctuation.  I'll give you an example.  There is absolutely no need to list your company name as:  Crappy Ins. Agy., Inc.  And you don't need to list your address as P.O. Box 1234.  All those superfluous periods and commas just make it look sloppy and unreadable.  Leave that out. 

Next up is people too lazy to write their full address.  How am I supposed to know if 1234 N Melvina in Chicago is a street, avenue, parkway, road, place, or something else.  If it was up to me (unfortunately it's not) I would terminate agency contracts for these offenses.  Sadly this is just the kind of thing that would lead to the termination of my employment. 

Both of these loosely fall under the category of Grammar Genocide - a term coined by one anonymous acquaintance - which is becoming far too prevalent in today's society.  I almost can't visit Youtube anymore because I know that becoming irritated by inadvertently reading some of the comments left by the barely literate mouth breathers is almost unavoidable.  And as a certified Grammar God (based on a no longer existing online grammar quiz), I am legally authorized to complain about or correct other's grammar. 

The point to all of this is:  in order to prevent the English language from devolving into a collection of various grunts, something needs to be done.  Should you experience someone committing grammar genocide in your presence, you have an obligation to the world in general to shoot that idiot square in the face.  Also be on the lookout for the sub category of grammar genocide:  apostrophemy - the blasphemous misuse of apostrophes.  This has gone on for too long and something needs to be done.

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