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.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Wandering Thought of a Mad Woman
Posted by squidlover at 3:24 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment