Wednesday, November 12, 2008

I shaved my beard and WTF!...

Hello once again as I usher you through the inner workings of my scrambled brain.

I've had some people asking me about my beard lately. During finals week, when I was in college, I would get superstitious and once classes ended for the semester I would not shave until I took all my finals. But I'm not in school any more and for some odd reason I decided to grow my hair out a little (on the top of my head AND on my face)... for no legitimate reason. I didn't even know when I would end up shaving again.

I figured the timing was right for it to serve as an Evan Tanner tribute beard (oh, just Google it if you don't know who or what I'm talking about) but that wasn't it. Maybe I could use the election as my cover story. For a while I even vowed that if John McCain were to win, I would continue growing my hair - including facial hair - for 4 more years until the next presidential election. But the election came and went and I didn't shave. Eventually, I just got tired of it (as I often am when it comes to my facial hair). I find myself cycling through facial "looks": sporting the goatee, being clean shaven, growing the beard... and other variations in between (except the stand-alone mustache... looks funny on me).

So I shaved my beard. I took pictures of the carnage in my bathroom sink but decided to spare you all the details so there will be no posting of the evidence here. You'll just have to take my word for it. Lets just say if there was a "Locks of Love" for facial hair, I would have TOTALLY donated it... but it was just trashcan-bound.

But you know... all this talk of waste and useless things reminds me of something I've heard lately. It's gotten so deep under my skin... I can't keep it inside any more!!

Through all the political coverage for days after Election Day all I kept hearing was how Barack Obama's win was historically significant. I am not disagree with that (how can one dispute that??). What I am hating is the mangling of the English language in the process!!! This is a historic event in American history NOT "an historic" event. WTF is 'anistoric' anyway!?!??!! Anistoric isn't proper use of the article "a/an"!! Oh, I'm sorry... is this a new dialect of English? I didn't realize the 'h' in historic (or historical) was silent!!

I mean with the world wide inter-web nets available to us, can't an editor or assistant producer look up the grammar rules??? I was able to find 2 reputable resources after 35 seconds of searching online: (1) http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/articlestext.htm and (2) http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/

Folks, this misuse and blatant disregard of the English language is ridiculous. It also happens to be one of my many pet peeves. (For a wonderful list of other modern butchering "modifications" of the English language, click here. Definitely worth a look.)

*sigh*

Sadly, that's all I have for you today but....
SPOILER ALERT:: Tomorrow's SPECIAL weekend entry will be a preview of UFC 91 (along with guest commentary and predictions) and why it matters EVEN to those of you who don't know - or care - about MMA.

No comments: