Saturday, July 09, 2005

Making No Sense

I get that language evolves, and sometimes I'm okay with it. Certain words in common usage become taboo, and others that used to evoke negativity become fun.

But some things bug me. I hate it when people say they could care less. I don't care if everyone says it that way now, it still makes no sense. If you could care less who wins the SuperBowl, then you'd better put on a jersey and park yourself in front of the TV, friend, because you just said you care. (For those of you who are wrinkling your brow in confusion, the correct phrase is "couldn't care less" by which you mean you don't care at all. Get it?)

The other thing that bugs me is the thoughtless butchering of the phrase, "If you think X, you've got another think coming." I've seen it in print several times in the recent past, and every time the user said "...you've got another thing coming."

Oh? What thing would that be? Brain rot?

I mean, please, people, use your brains. Does that make any sense at all? If the first think is wrong, you need to think again. Thing is ridiculous. I mean, I understand that when we SAY the phrase, the k and the c lock up in our throats and sound like g. But really.

What started me on this rant is that in yesterday's Entertainment Weekly, in an otherwise well-written article, they screwed it up. It's bad enough to see it in occasional e-mail list posts and small-press-published book titles (though it could have been intentional in that one, I don't know). It's another to see it published in internationally acclaimed magazines.

It's not quite a symbol of the downfall of our society. But it is a contributor to the downfall of my good mood.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know what annoys me? People who turn on their instant messaging programs and then disappear! I realize you could care less about this, but if you think I'm going to stand for it, you've got another thing coming.

:)

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

You're hilarious. I'm not even going to dignify this with a response.