Lingua Franca

The Alot is Better Than You At Everything

2010-04-16T14:04:00.002-04:00

Excellent and funny methods of coping with other people's poor grammar and spelling habits:
The Alot Is Better Than You At Everything

Extremely profane grammar rant

2010-04-05T17:21:00.003-04:00

How to Use a Semicolon

2010-03-24T10:40:00.002-04:00

Bob the Angry Flower's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots

2010-03-24T10:38:00.001-04:00

Learn Your Damn Homophones

2010-01-08T09:34:00.001-05:00

I’m tired of this shit.

It’s about time that everyone learned their damn homophones. If you slept your way through the fourth grade or just skipped all of the grammar lectures because you were too busy sucking off that dude in the locker room, then maybe this table will help clear up some of the fucking confusion.

via learnyourdamnhomophones.com

Posted via web from alexis lloyd

Classic

2010-01-08T09:32:00.001-05:00

via juliasegal.tumblr.com

Posted via web from alexis lloyd

Hole. You know, like compleet or entyre.

2009-09-08T11:07:00.002-04:00

I Don't C What He's Getting At

2009-08-31T22:47:00.001-04:00

Seriously. All spelling aside, what the fuck is this guy talking about?

Cross posted at Is It Luck.

Please Try Harder

2009-08-31T08:37:00.004-04:00

Images lovingly stolen from Oddee.

Um, do you mean PAPRIKASH?

2009-07-30T17:16:00.002-04:00

From the cafeteria's Polish specialties station today...

These is for learningz

2009-07-16T14:01:00.003-04:00

The rooster is dead! Long live the rooster!

2009-07-14T09:51:00.003-04:00

I belong to a local parenting email list, and there was a recent discussion of farms where kids can do hands-on activities with the animals. One mother praised a recent trip she had taken with her kids to a local farm, where "the kids actually pick veggies and collect eggs from a chicken coup- while the chickens are pecking at your feet." My advice? Don't try to steal eggs while a revolution is in progress.

Our brethren in righteous indignation

2009-07-09T15:20:00.001-04:00

Tip of the hat to dailykos for drawing my attention to this one:

http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

sigh

2009-07-06T15:01:00.002-04:00

I haven't been able to gather my thoughts enough to write any deep posts lately, so I'm reduced to pointing out, in passing, annoying things I see. Such as this comment on a friend's Facebook status:

"yeah, no your talking!"

Somehow the combination of the typo, the stupid your/you're error, and the enthusiastic exclamation point just epitomized so much of the language I see every day (especially online).

Pet Peeves of the Day

2009-07-05T20:53:00.002-04:00

Cut and dry
Ice tea
Diffuse the situation

her spicy what?

2009-06-26T09:48:00.003-04:00

on the wall of the fashionable tribeca brunch destination, bubby's:

my favorite store in park slope

2009-06-24T21:05:00.010-04:00

(cross posted at Is it Luck?)

This is my favorite store in park slope (click on the picture to enlarge & read the green awning):

Yes, it's Stop & Fifth, which is either at the corner of of Fifth Ave and Stop Street, or else the proprietors think "fifth" is a verb. Maybe it's some obscure, extremely thorough way of practicing Robert's Rules of Order.

"I move that we adjourn!"
"I second."
"I third."
"I fourth."
[...silence...]
"Anyone? C'mon, we need someone to fifth this motion before we can vote on it. What about you, Johnson? I fifthed your stupid 'chips and salsa at all meetings' motion last week."

I guess Stop & Fifth is one of those rare establishments where you can pop in to fulfill any bizarrely draconian bureaucratic duties while you wait for your tuna wrap.

To be precise, Stop & Fifth is my favorite currently open Park Slope establishment. My all time favorite, which I sadly do not have a picture of, was a dollar store that enthusiastically boasted on its awning "99¢! And Less! And Up!"

In the just plain stupid category, there's this, which Alexis snapped while I was driving through Mamaroneck last weekend:

Hot Hot Hot

2009-06-19T11:35:00.002-04:00

In my advanced legal research and writing class, we've spent this week going over grammar and style. We've been reading bad essays and correcting them. I tend to pick out problems other than what the professor wants us to focus on.

I'll say what I find wrong, and the professor will say, "Be that as it may, focus on correcting the problem we've been talking about."

Last night, one of the sentences included the phrase "the Senate lies down in the face of a mounting problem."

My comment was that "lies down in the face" is the worst mixed metaphor of all time - especially in a sentence with "mounting" in it.

Because your nails have places to be...

2009-06-12T10:32:00.001-04:00

It's French, silly!

2009-06-09T12:22:00.002-04:00

I participate in a parenting message board, and I just saw a post in which someone referred to "hoping that his cold clears up toot sweet". Toot sweet! I'm somehow less offended by utter wrongness when it's kind of cute.

I'm just going to throw this out there:

2009-06-05T08:49:00.003-04:00

"The United States": singular or plural noun?

Schadenfreude by Typographical Error

2009-05-28T15:03:00.004-04:00

Hint: It appears from :26 until the end.

Tip of the red pen to Right Wing Watch

Oh for christ's sake, people!

2009-05-27T23:06:00.001-04:00

I know times are tough, but you're a giant company. You make SUGAR. Everyone still buys that. You can afford copy editors, I know you can.

Preview of coming annoyances

2009-05-15T09:23:00.003-04:00

I believe I've stumbled across a trend: it's the misspelling of "sneak peek." Everywhere I look people are spelling it "sneak peak." I would love to find a legitimate explanation for it but there just isn't one. People can't spell, or don't understand how rhyming works, or how homophones work, or some combination of the three.

Or, least likely, they think it's an idiomatic expression about stealthy mountains. I think I'd prefer to believe that.

You & I

2009-05-14T19:06:00.003-04:00

If you read this blog, chances are you are annoyed by the rampant misuse of the first-person pronoun in everyday speech. I now me am.

So, I was worried when I saw that the duet with Feist on the new Wilco record was entitled You & I. I desperately wanted it not to use "I" where "me" would be correct.

It is with great pleasure and admiration that I bestow the first official Lingua Franca Award (The Lingie Awards?) to songwriter Jeff Tweedy for lines such as:

You and I, I think we can make it.

Me and you, what can we do?

Congratulations, Jeff!

Honorable mention goes to Tom Petty for: You and me and the road ahead from The Last DJ.

If you'd like to hear the award-winning song, go here.

Lingua Franca Has Competition.

2009-05-14T18:53:00.004-04:00

Never start a land war in Asia, and never go in against The Onion when hilarity is on the line.

One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons ever

2009-05-07T10:08:00.002-04:00

Joe the Asshole, Part 2

2009-05-05T15:59:00.002-04:00

*Cross-posted at Is It Luck*

I am so stupid. Rather than make the departure to "tank" to show the obvious stupidity of "Joe's" "argument", I rather should have referred to the word "gay."

Gay means "joyously excited." Over time, it has come to mean "homosexual." Therefore, by "Joe's" "logic", homosexuals are joyously excited.

QED.

Or perhaps, as I indicated in my earlier post, abuse of the dictionary is not a proper basis for a syllogism.

Joe the Asshole

2009-05-05T12:48:00.002-04:00

*Cross Posted at Is It Luck*

His name isn't Joe, he's not a plumber, he doesn't own "his" business, yet he is John McCain's role model. I wonder if that extends to child rearing advice. If so, the little McCains had better avoid the gays. Here's an exchange between JtP and Christianity Today:

In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?

At a state level, it's up to them. I don't want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it's wrong. People don't understand the dictionary—it's called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we're supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we're supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they're people, and they're going to do their thing.

I included his entire response lest I be accused of taking his sage words out of context. As you can see, there is no context (unless "I don't want [the decision to legalize gay marriage] to be a federal thing" is context). Nope, this is unadulterated homophobia.

But his unabashed bigotry is not what concerns me most. He's just a moron on the wrong side of history. What troubles me is the catastrophic failure that occurred during this man's education. He seems to be entirely ignorant of the role of homophones in English.

Webster's Online Dictionary defines homophones as, "one of two or more words pronounced alike but different in meaning or derivation or spelling." Even when words have the same derivation and spelling, they can be homophones if their meanings differ. For example, when the British were developing armored vehicles during World War I, they disguised the weapons as water carriers, and the name "tank" stuck.

It is unlikely that anyone would insist that an M1-A1 be understood as the largest part of a hot water heater, despite their identical derivation. But this is exactly what Joe the Plumber asks his audience to do in the service of his bigoted non-ideas. Sorry, Joe; before you start lecturing me on the dictionary, perhaps you ought to consult one. If you can read.

Moo! Moo!

2009-05-04T17:33:00.001-04:00

"Low and behold"? Really?

Waist not, want not...

2009-05-04T14:29:00.004-04:00

Fewer! Fewer! FEWER!!!

2009-04-28T11:05:00.002-04:00

The girl in the next cubicle is droning on about how something "probably has less calories." She's going to have less minutes to live if she keeps going.

On a series of planters on an upper west side sidewalk...

2005-02-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

"KEEP DOG'S AWAY"

on large, professionally produced signs.

Wow, I must be really talented

2004-12-18T09:55:00.000-05:00

considering how tense I am all the time. And nothing makes me more tense than an unhyphenated compound modifier.

From a subway ad for Nelson DeMille's latest book:

"With inspired writing and the tension inducing talents of a true master..."

Amazing the difference a squiggle makes...

2004-12-12T19:40:00.000-05:00

Sentence in a student essay:

After eating Maria and Anne my friends, and I...

Beyond the call of duty

2004-12-08T14:22:00.000-05:00

Sign on the front door of a hotel in New Mexico:

We are committed to doing "whatever it takes" to insure your satisfaction.

Do you sew your own clothes?

2004-12-08T13:33:00.000-05:00