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Friday, September 28, 2012

Wandering Thought of a Mad Woman

Today I received an email that made me mad.  Rather than sit at home and stew about it, I decided to be productive and go for a walk.  I decided I would walk until I wasn't mad.  I walked quite a distance... almost 2 miles from home when I realized that even though I was still mad, I needed to turn back or else I'd be really far away and not make it home in time for some obligations I had.  Besides, I'd lost quite a bit of elevation and there was a big hill to climb standing between me and my house.  So, still mad, I headed home, the longer way.  While walking I realized that I was probably going to be mad for longer than my walk would last, but that was okay because my walking time-out gave me the chance to formulate a plan as to how I was going to deal with the email.  With a plan in place, I felt much better and let my mind turn to other things.  For some reason I started thinking about English language misuse.  Their and there and they're.  Its and it's.  Your and you're.  Then I hit upon my current #1 pet peeve misuse- sale and sell.  The two words, while related in meaning, are not interchangeable; they aren't even homophones.  Only in the Intermountain West have I heard these words used incorrectly.  I can't stand it when I hear (or read) "saleing a house".  "Saleing" isn't even a word.  Or how about "Who sales __________."  And then there's the infamous "Looking for a great sell on __________."  I am not a master of the English language and I make plenty of usage errors (lay, lie, lain, etc).  I am a terrible speller (and typist).  So please, help me develop patience for others' language errors.  That said, I was about a quarter mile from home when I finished mulling over "sale" and "sell".  Total walk distance?  4.7 miles.  And I'm still mad, but now I am productively mad.

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