Irrational Pet Peeve

I’m not normally this way…

It doesn’t bother me when people say ATM Machine or PIN Number…

And I happen to think “literally” literally means figuratively now so get over it.

And when people say Nuculear I think it is endearing.

Expresso doesn’t give me the jitters. It makes me smile. It’s so apropos.

And for all intents and purposes I kind of love the idea of intensive purposes.

My mom can’t say Fajita and it is charming. She always works an “r” in there somewhere.

I have to think hard about affect and effect. There’s usually a trip to the dictionary involved.

Fun fact: if you have a Mac, the built in thesaurus includes little gems of explanation written by, among others, David Foster Wallace. See, for example, Critique, Feckless, Focus, Impossibly, Individual, Mucous, and Utilize. 💯

I know the difference between fewer and less but I couldn’t care less if fewer and fewer people do.

Speaking of, when people say “I could care less” I still care about them.

But who’s going to care if your its is it’s and who’s is whose? And don’t even get me started on whom. Can we just pretend it never existed?

I’ll even allot you a lot of allots.

Irregardless is a word irregardless of what your English teacher says.

And although it still sounds funny to me I’m pretty much ok with funner and funnest now.

What I’m saying is I’m really not one of those word snobs.

I love the fluid nature of English and I’ve read enough about language to know that even “perfect” old fashioned English is a very new-fashioned thing. We all say the “wrong” words all the time and when we do it enough they become the right words.

It’s pure alchemy: we turn linguistic lead into something like gold right before our own eyes.

And then we start to think it’s real gold and we get grumpy when those kids today rub off the shine revealing the dullness of it, and transmute it all over again.

Which is silly. But I digress.

This whole list is a digression. Who am I kidding.

I bring all this up as an apology for what I’m about to say…

But here goes:

A TAX RETURN is the document you file with the IRS reporting on your income and tax situation.

If you get money back after filing your return, it is called a TAX REFUND.

It makes no sense to say “I got my tax return so now I’m going shopping”.

Well, unless you like to shop before doing paperwork. In which case more power to you.

That is all. Carry on.