HM Is The Word Police

I have noticed a disturbing trend. People are suffering from lack of reading. They do not know the proper spellings of words, or how to use them in context. I blame this on their lack of reading for pleasure. The more you read, the bigger your vocabulary. It's true. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom says so. Kids these days, and back through Generation Y and Generation X, don't read for fun. They read (if the teacher is lucky) what is assigned in school. They read text messages. Perhaps they read MySpace. But they are not getting the exposure to words that they need to appear literate on the innernets. I know that's not spelled right. I'm doing it for effect. Not affect. Which brings up another reason for this appearance of lax literacy: SpellCheck. If the word is really a word, it gets through. We need ContextCheck. Let's get a software developer on that right away. It probably exists already. I'm just saying that for effect. Not affect.

Sure, this is the place where you read about Betty, the famous author who just died (but turned out to be Katherine Hepburn, the actress, who died two years before). That was HH's doing. He's not a reader. I confess to calling Tiki Barber the football player 'KiKi'. But only 3 out of 4 times that I referred to him. I also confess to referencing the famous painter, Sidney Pollack. I KNEW his first name was Jackson. I have no idea what possessed my fingers to type 'Sidney'. But at least I know what I've done wrong.

Let me share with you some jarring massacre-age of the English language. Oh, and it doesn't apply to ME, because I often like to create my own words for effect. Not affect. Just like some of my wacky punctuation and sentence fragments. They're for effect. Not affect.

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The first four examples are brought to you by BObama's commenters on his official website. You know, the highly-educated voters he claims, while rejecting those religious gun-clingers.

*That is a mute point. [At least it's quiet.]

*We're waiting for the next attack to come down the pipe. [Eww. That doesn't sound good.]

*His people are not even being surveyed. They are young and use cell phones and are not in the phone book. They don't even have Lan lines for surveyors to call them on. [That means I'm old. They called me on my land line.]

*If he gets more than that, it will be just icy on the cake. [Call me crazy, but I prefer ICING on MY cake. Which reminds me of a joke: Two inmates at the insane asylum were fertilizing the strawberry patch. The first asked the second one, a new arrival whose hobbies included gardening, "Do you put manure on your strawberries?" The second replied, "Well, I prefer sugar on mine, but I'm crazy." Oh, my. That's a bit politically incorrect. My apologies.]

BUT THERE ARE MORE...

*Her proudest accomplishment is leaving home, moving to California by herself not knowing a sole. (CBS Big Brother bio page) [So the fish in the Big Brother fish tank are truly strangers to her.]

*He is extremely conceded about himself. (ABC News website) [And somewhat of a pessimist, apparently.]

*There is about 5 of them in there cleaning the bathroom, sighting lines from old movies. (Big Brother forum) [Wow! Somebody has been peeing movie quotes around the toilet again!]

*You have been calling the Obama's every evil nasty filthy disgusting thing you your pee brain can think of. (ABC News blog) [Wrong on so many levels, but this individual might fit in with the bathroom cleaners above.]

*You are too stupid to converse with please go back to playing hide the sausage witn your inbread father. (ABC News blog) [Ooh! Sausage AND bread! And hillbilly dialect, too.]

*It is amazing how many fairy tails we are supposed to swallow and believe as fact. (Amazon reviews) [Fairies have tails? Who knew?]

*I can see I'm going to have to find some specific things to site. (IMDB message board) [Which is better than sighting movie quotes on the bathroom floor, I suppose.]

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As you can see, some have multiple issues. I am OH SO GLAD I'm perfect.