These are, I do not jest, categorized by the Jimmy Dean company as “Flapsticks.” It’s just so many kinds of wrong.
Things Not to Step In
07 Jun 2009 Sun
Only … in … America (part 1 of ∞)
Posted by pannonica under Only in America, Things Not to Step In | Tags: blueberries, breakfast, chocolate chips, Food, frozen food, jimmy dean, sausage, serving size, skewers, sticks |[9] Comments
07 May 2009 Thu
Sticktoitiveness
Posted by pannonica under Food, Random Thoughts, Things Not to Step In | Tags: artificial colors, chewing gum, fruit stripe, mint, watermelon, wrigley's, yipes |[9] Comments
Someone offered me some gum today. It was a stick of New! Wrigley’s · Extra · Fruit Sensations · Long Lasting Fruit Flavor · Sweet Watermelon · Sugarfree Gum. Now, aside from having a name nearly as long as the phone book, the box was roughly the shape of a phone book, in miniature:
— But that’s okay. Not a problem. Not where I’m going today —
13 Apr 2009 Mon
Knowledge, A Little
Posted by pannonica under Panniverse™, Things Not to Step In | Tags: church, current events, gilda radner, maersk alabama, news, obama, obesity, saturday night live, saudi arabia, siam, thailand, tour de france |[7] Comments
With apologies to Emily Letilla, I’d like to caution everyone about not being fully engaged with current events. In my opinion it’s fine to be either totally ignorant or completely apprised of what’s going on in the world. It’s the middle ground, that notorious ‘little bit of knowledge’ that provides occasion for danger.
24 Jan 2009 Sat
Frost/Nixon Rural/Puerile – an odd visit to Britain
Posted by pannonica under English Usage, Things Not to Step In | Tags: England, place names, puerility, Scotland, silly | [3] Comments
“No Snickering: That Road Sign Means Something Else” is currently the most e-mailed article at The New York Times website. But just in case your internet browser is under a rock, I’m highlighting and linking to it here at pannaceaeae because grownups (who may have outgrown the cartoons on television ) still like to see something silly on Saturday mornings.
14 Nov 2008 Fri
Contraction Distraction
Posted by pannonica under English Usage, Panniverse™, Things Not to Step In | Tags: grammar, snot, spoken english |[5] Comments
Don’t have much time to write this, but I suspect everyone would appreciate it if I posted something else so little noosey kitten isn’t the first thing confronting you upon arrival.
So once again it’s time for a grammar peeve. This one is personal. Much as I mentally kicked myself as a teenager every time I gratuitously said “like” or “you know,” nowadays I commit a verbal faux pas that really irks me (although I wouldn’t be surprised if no one else notices it). Here it is:
I try to avoid using the contraction of “it is” followed by the word “not” because it sounds like I’m saying “snot.” Now, I’m not much of a prude, but if I’m going to say “snot” I’ll say it when I damn well intend to. In this particular case it’s just as easy to transfer the contraction from “it is” to “is not” and I am diligently trying to train my mind to say “it isn’t.” Another possibility is to invent a new contraction: “it’sn’t” which is kind of funky but I doubt it’ll catch on as it sounds too similar to “isn’t.”
Next: The Mystery of Snu.
27 Sep 2008 Sat
Politicking, Styxling
Posted by pannonica under Litterbox Clumps, Panniverse™, Things Not to Step In | Tags: biden, campaign, candidates, humor, mccain, obama, palin, pieces of eight, politics, song parody, styx, tommy shaw |[26] Comments
I generally don’t get involved with politics, but it seems as if the entire world is currently saturated with news and updates of the endless U.S. Presidential campaign / election / potential annunciation. Somehow it combined and evolved within my head into a bizarre hybrid political rhetoric earworm, which I fear I can only expunge through a blog posting:
14 Sep 2008 Sun
“Those gripes are probably sour anyway”
Posted by pannonica under English Usage, Litterbox Clumps, Things Not to Step In | Tags: Aesop, dictionaries, dissect, fox, grammar, grapes, grr, guesstimate, language, pet peeves, silent h, sourness, word usage |[5] Comments
Working intermittently on a big old elaborate post which is taking a while to fruiten.
In the interim I’m slapping together, as per usual in such circumstances, another episode of the old blog standby, the word usage and grammar philippic. This one’s rather brief, but I hope it will abate any withdrawal symptoms you may be experiencing, Dear Reader(s).
- guesstimate. Merriam-Webster defines it as “an estimate usually made without adequate information.” The Oxford English Dictionary says it’s “an estimate which is based on both guesswork and reasoning.” Listen, something is either a guess or it’s an estimate! You can have a well-informed guess or a poor estimate, but the former is still a guess and the latter is still an estimate. These species do not commingle. No viable offspring here. Incidentally, I was amazed to find out how long this misbegotten creature’s been around; M-W says 1923, while the OED cites a 1936 New York Times article. The OED is incorrect, however. I searched the Times’ website and the oldest citation there is:
‘GUESSTIMATE’ APPRAISAL.; Realtor Coins New Word to Express Careless Methods. [May 6, 1928, Sunday · Section: Classified Ad, Page 197, 135 words]
Sorry, I can’t tell you any more about it because I wasn’t going to pay $3.95 to see the rest.
25 Aug 2008 Mon
Words, words everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
Posted by pannonica under English Usage, Litterbox Clumps, Things Not to Step In | Tags: autoantonyms, blah, congress, grammar, grrr, language, oversight, personally, pet peeves, quotes, staples, usage, wordle, yadda |[15] Comments
courtesy http://wordle.net
My adoring fans demand, demand, a new post. Okay, maybe it’s not quite that overwhelming. Fully half of my regular readers asked me to get back on the keyboard and do something. Well, it’s really only one person, Dish, but since I have only two regular readers it’s technically half. (update: while I was intermittently composing this, curlywurlygurly chimed in in agreement, so now 100% of my quote fans unquote are breathing down my neck).
My response? The hoariest of blog staples: the diatribe on word usage and grammar! Ta-da!
Yes, I know everyone does at least one of these. But in this case I’m doing it to show you all that I’m not special. I’m just like everyone else: I put my panties on one leg at a time (then I take them off because they’re inside-out, put them on one leg at a time again, take them off because they’re backwards, and put them on yet again one leg at a time – hmm… maybe I am “special”).
So anyway, I have so many gripes about language that I’m sure I could write a whole book on the subject, but I’ll limit this post to a select few that are (a) most prominent in my mind right now, and (b) have, I believe, not already been written about to death by every blogger and their little sister (apostrophes, axe vs. ask, “should of,” et al.). (more…)