Thursday, December 11, 2003
Fire at will!!
Everyone understands what is meant by that command but I find it odd. What did Will do? And how has he managed to survive when everyone is always shooting at him? I sometimes wonder if the expression is used in actual battle but I don't suppose I really want to know. It's just in my nature to worry about those who are in harm's way even if they exist only in my musings.
On a somewhat related topic, people speak incorrectly and, rather than continuing to hold the line, those in linguistic authority bow to the masses. When did "a tad" become so ambiguous that "bit" had to be appended to it for clarification? Why is "Sam and I" always acceptable in intelligent conversation, even when it's incorrect? (People give things to Sam but never to "I". It's not all that difficult a concept.) Whose idea was it to equate, "I could care less," with the correctly phrased, "I couldn't care less"? If you could care less, then you're more ambivalent than disinterested. Trivial note: the television program "Saturday Night Live" was originally entitled just, "Saturday Night." So few of the show's fans could remember the show's proper name that the network surrendered to popular misconception and renamed it. Where would Millard Fillmore be if he changed his name because people remembered it incorrectly? Perhaps he's not the ideal example because a skeleton by any other name would still be dead.
Oh, well. Fire at William Safire. There's some symmetry to it as well as poetic justice.
'night
On a somewhat related topic, people speak incorrectly and, rather than continuing to hold the line, those in linguistic authority bow to the masses. When did "a tad" become so ambiguous that "bit" had to be appended to it for clarification? Why is "Sam and I" always acceptable in intelligent conversation, even when it's incorrect? (People give things to Sam but never to "I". It's not all that difficult a concept.) Whose idea was it to equate, "I could care less," with the correctly phrased, "I couldn't care less"? If you could care less, then you're more ambivalent than disinterested. Trivial note: the television program "Saturday Night Live" was originally entitled just, "Saturday Night." So few of the show's fans could remember the show's proper name that the network surrendered to popular misconception and renamed it. Where would Millard Fillmore be if he changed his name because people remembered it incorrectly? Perhaps he's not the ideal example because a skeleton by any other name would still be dead.
Oh, well. Fire at William Safire. There's some symmetry to it as well as poetic justice.
'night
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