Watching Words Vanish

With all the legal-themed brouhaha in the news of late, I've noticed something unsettling. The proliferation of the phrase "pleaded not guilty". Apparently it's in fashion to give statements of innocence while wearing a skirt. (Think about it for a minute, you'll get it.) I remember quite vividly the word "pled", and how people "pled not guilty". Now, after a quick search, that word barely registers on the intertubewebs. In fact, the blogger spell-checker is underlining it. Thankfully, dictionary.com has it, albeit tangentially. I know the language changes over time, and I know it's inevitable. I just would have rather it changed a generation after me, so I wouldn't have to twitch all the time. Either that, or have it swing back the other way so we could start tacking "e"s on everything, and spell words like "happiness" with flourishing f-like characters. Viz:

Punctuation Is Important, As Is Shameless Self-Promotion

While driving around scenic Tucson today, I spotted a sign that made me guffaw. Normally I try not to guffaw while driving, but we were stopped at a light so it was OK. (Deb hadn't seen the sign, so she just thought I had finally snapped.) The sign, crafted from fine stone-ground cardboard, was tacked to a telephone pole. It read: "Shit-Zu Puppy's For Sale". I gave them credit for the hyphen, as I thought that the word required one. (Turns out it doesn't.) Not in that part of the word, of course, but I thought it was there. The woefully inappropriate apostrophe s would normally have me enraged, but the first part of the sign really took the sting out of it. There's a word of advice to those of you who are a tad shaky on some of the more fundamental rules of grammar: make the first mistake really funny, and the others will be glossed over by your reader.

In other news, I've been a CafePress madman of late. Eight new stores and counting. If you're interested, click me. If you're not interested, that's fine too.

*sniff*

Typos Doth Vex Me

It's a good thing I'm not a proofreader by trade. My head would have blown up by now.

From an internet radio site: "so you can listen in the future without the hastle". Yes, the little red underline thingy just means that I'm spelling it with emphasis!

From the footer of a Yahoo! e-mail: "Don't get soaked. Take a quick peak at the forecast". Because everyone knows that weather comes from mountains. The tops of the mountains, or "peaks", tear holes in the clouds. That's where rain comes from. Ripped clouds.

I really don't get it. I mean, I understood it (to some degree) when people didn't have spell checkers to do it for them. But even this blog writing applet underlines the words that aren't words! So, I've decided I'm going to speak in typo from now on. I'm joining the masses. When I meet people, I'm going to say "Heee" instead of "Hi". "Shoe" instead of "sure", things like that. Changing vowels here, stretching consonant pairings there... if I'm consistent I'm pretty sure I can get some sort of pity funding. At the very least, I'll get people to leave me the hell alone.