The Cunning Linguist - by Philip

The Leo constellation must be in retrograde or descending past Mercury or whatever the hell would make people who were born in August wear their cranky pants right now because, like Douglas, I’ve been a bit on edge this week. While I agree with him wholeheartedly about the ice chewing and gum smacking, the object of annoyance for me this week has been people who say stupid things. I’m not calling those people “stupid,” I’m just saying that the things that they say would sound more appropriate in an asylum for the pathologically unsmart. Here, I’ll give you some examples:

1. Stop saying “at the end of the day” when what you really mean is “the truth is.” For example, I recently heard someone say, “Our company is in a good position long-term, but at the end of the day, everyone will have to make cutbacks.” Wait, are you saying that we need to lay people off by 5:00PM? Should I start interviewing?


2. Also, please stop saying “going forward” when what you really mean is “in the future.” For example, “We’ll be instituting all of these policies going forward.” Does this mean that we have to keep moving forward like sharks or the policies will drown? Or did you really mean, “in the future,” which is what you would have said if you weren’t a brainless cog? (Ouch! Hurry up, Leo, and move into, I don’t know, Aquarius or something. My snarkiness is up to 11.)


3. Speaking of “going forward,” I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the word “forward” has two ‘R’s. It’s pronounced “four-word,” not “fuh-word.” Please make a note of this, Andy.


4. "Irregardless" actually means the opposite of what you're trying to say.


5. Unrelated Question: If Chevrolet is as American as baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie, then why does it have a French pronunciation? And will Toby Keith be writing a song about this?


6. Please, please stop using “the thing is” as the subject of your sentence. Do you not realize how ridiculous it sounds to say, “The thing is is that we have to start speeding up our rollouts going forward”? Perhaps if you typed it, you would see that you just wrote the word “is” twice, which Microsoft would tell you is a no-no. BTW, the same thing applies to “the problem is is that…” so cut that out too. I said "please."


7. The second-person southern plural pronoun is spelled “y’all” and not “ya’ll” It’s short for “you all,” not “ya will.” Please make a note of it.


8. Please stop supporting your viewpoint by making lists of items that mean the same thing. For instance, don't try to convince me to buy your new software because it's "simple, easy and convenient." Even that's better than the lay people who don't even bother to come up with a third thing, preferring to conclude their lists with phrases like "and stuff like that" or "and this, that and the other." Seriously, dude, make an effort.


9. The final request I have is please, for the love of all that is holy, stop saying “a whole nother.” You can’t just break a word in half and stick a whole nother word right into the middle of it. If we let people do that, it would be the end of so frickin’ ciety as we know it.

Okay, I’m glad that I got that out of my system. The thing is is that, going forward, would ya’ll please be sure to stop using the kind of language listed above because, irregardless of your grammatical preferences, at the end of the day, it’s everyone’s responsibility to talk correctly, and to speak well and that sort of thing. I’d love to discuss this further, but I'll have to save it for a whole nother post.

Do you have any miscarriages of grammar that you'd like to share? Add a comment to tell us which combinations of words just drive you crazy.

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