![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Or, rather, from a couple of hours wasted in front of the TV.
I would be far, far more amused by Corporate Idol (name borrowed from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ryttu3k) if there were more fun songs used. Just a snippet like "- with a giraffe, if you stand on a stool. But the hedgehog -" would be more than enough to make an entire evening's entertainment.
Or, for that matter, singing a well-known tune but substituting lyrics from an unrelated book.
What somewhat irritates me is poor style in advertisement. Consider:
Joy. Grief. Fear. Pride. Wonder. Love. Surprised. Amused. Excitement. Passion. Entertainment.
(snipped from an irritating pay TV ad)
We get:
Noun, noun, noun. Nounitty-noun, noun. OMGWTFAdjectives. Noun, noun, noun.
It's not like the noun forms of the words in question are hard to find, or particularly long. In fact, you pass it on the way to 'surprised' without so much as a second glance or, in my case, a forlorn wave to a part of speech that'd make the ad far, far easier to ignore.
Even so, this irritates me less than the fashinable advertising concept of thorougly abusing English when it comes to ads involving teh childrens. No, really. Like the way that 'baby' has suddenly managed to become an uncountable noun. It comes with no determiners - it isn't a baby, the baby, your baby, their baby, one baby, no baby or every baby. Now, the way I see it, there's really only one way to turn 'baby' into an uncountable noun.
Worse still, months ago a supposedly edjukaytede group with what may well be a wondrous set of preventive measures for infant death had their entire message lost to me when they decided that something along the lines of 'sleep baby on its side' was somehow sensible. Welcome, dear readers, to the wonderful world of intransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs don't take objects, nor do they take kindly to that kind of nonsense. Better yet, 'sleep baby' on its own qualifies as a fun little imperative, and erodes the foundations of what little sense was there.
Some folk see dead people. I hear the screams of pain from these poor, abused words, and wish that there was some way to help them; to save them from people who should by all rights know better. This all reminds me of some time ago, while I was learning German. We were doing some rather boring little 'fill-in-the-words' thing in pairs, which almost turned into a little 'stab-partner-with-pen' thing. With a few left, I basically went through and scribbled them into place based on endings to assemble grammatically-correct sentences. My incredibly apt partner then said, "How do you know they go there?"
"Simple," I replied. "The endings fit to make proper sentences. It's just grammar."
"I don't care about grammar. I just want to learn the language," she said, in a mildly offended tone; seemingly upset that I would suggest that making yourself understandable is the most important consideration when learning a language.
In other news, my heater occasionally stops working. I think it may be having a problem with gas pressure, since everything else on it seems to work perfectly well and it only really cuts out at night. I'd be tempted to call it a silly heater, but L Ron Cruise would charge in to fill it with vitamins while protesting that he knows the entire history of electronics and that it's a quack science.
Lastly, I have a new icon. You might have seen it. This is here because:
a) I wanted a QC icon.
b) It's a rather versatile expression.
c) I quite enjoy Jeph's style of drawing.
d) I like the hat.
And that's about it for now. See? I told you they were random thoughts.
I would be far, far more amused by Corporate Idol (name borrowed from
ryttu3k) if there were more fun songs used. Just a snippet like "- with a giraffe, if you stand on a stool. But the hedgehog -" would be more than enough to make an entire evening's entertainment.Or, for that matter, singing a well-known tune but substituting lyrics from an unrelated book.
What somewhat irritates me is poor style in advertisement. Consider:
Joy. Grief. Fear. Pride. Wonder. Love. Surprised. Amused. Excitement. Passion. Entertainment.
(snipped from an irritating pay TV ad)
We get:
Noun, noun, noun. Nounitty-noun, noun. OMGWTFAdjectives. Noun, noun, noun.
It's not like the noun forms of the words in question are hard to find, or particularly long. In fact, you pass it on the way to 'surprised' without so much as a second glance or, in my case, a forlorn wave to a part of speech that'd make the ad far, far easier to ignore.
Even so, this irritates me less than the fashinable advertising concept of thorougly abusing English when it comes to ads involving teh childrens. No, really. Like the way that 'baby' has suddenly managed to become an uncountable noun. It comes with no determiners - it isn't a baby, the baby, your baby, their baby, one baby, no baby or every baby. Now, the way I see it, there's really only one way to turn 'baby' into an uncountable noun.
Worse still, months ago a supposedly edjukaytede group with what may well be a wondrous set of preventive measures for infant death had their entire message lost to me when they decided that something along the lines of 'sleep baby on its side' was somehow sensible. Welcome, dear readers, to the wonderful world of intransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs don't take objects, nor do they take kindly to that kind of nonsense. Better yet, 'sleep baby' on its own qualifies as a fun little imperative, and erodes the foundations of what little sense was there.
Some folk see dead people. I hear the screams of pain from these poor, abused words, and wish that there was some way to help them; to save them from people who should by all rights know better. This all reminds me of some time ago, while I was learning German. We were doing some rather boring little 'fill-in-the-words' thing in pairs, which almost turned into a little 'stab-partner-with-pen' thing. With a few left, I basically went through and scribbled them into place based on endings to assemble grammatically-correct sentences. My incredibly apt partner then said, "How do you know they go there?"
"Simple," I replied. "The endings fit to make proper sentences. It's just grammar."
"I don't care about grammar. I just want to learn the language," she said, in a mildly offended tone; seemingly upset that I would suggest that making yourself understandable is the most important consideration when learning a language.
In other news, my heater occasionally stops working. I think it may be having a problem with gas pressure, since everything else on it seems to work perfectly well and it only really cuts out at night. I'd be tempted to call it a silly heater, but L Ron Cruise would charge in to fill it with vitamins while protesting that he knows the entire history of electronics and that it's a quack science.
Lastly, I have a new icon. You might have seen it. This is here because:
a) I wanted a QC icon.
b) It's a rather versatile expression.
c) I quite enjoy Jeph's style of drawing.
d) I like the hat.
And that's about it for now. See? I told you they were random thoughts.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 09:43 am (UTC)I would almost enjoy seeing L Ron Cruise taking on electronics. I would particularly enjoy meeting him with a soldering iron. *angelic smile*
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 09:46 am (UTC)Oooh... *imagines*
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:10 am (UTC)(No, seriously, can I friend you?)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:15 am (UTC)There is a Terrible Price™ - the price being that I'll probably friend you right back in about... let's call it twenty seconds ago. The Statler and Waldorf icon did it. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:16 am (UTC)Fifteen hours!
My life has no meaning.
But yay for the consistent mate-taking habits of intransitive verbs. (It makes up for inconsistent use of grammatical rules, at least a little.)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:45 am (UTC)His accent is just so… Kiwi.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:53 am (UTC)Would you mind if I friend you?
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 11:44 am (UTC)Bad grammar pains you.
And you participated in (or was it "started"?) the Grand Star Wars Llama Substitution Game.
I think it is high time I friended you. :D
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 04:13 pm (UTC)I found my way here from
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 04:29 pm (UTC)s, hello!no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 04:34 pm (UTC)They don't teach proper grammar in school. In 12 years of pre-college education, the most grammar I learned was during high school French class. I remember when we had a lesson on direct and indirect objects. The French teacher had to give us a crash course on English grammar since no one knew what direct objects were.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I've messed up that last paragraph grammatically somehow.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 04:35 pm (UTC)It's like being stabbed in the eye with the pointy end of a greengrocer's apostrophe.
Um... started. I think
Why not. Keep in mind, I may just friend you right back.
*Some days I go insane with footnotes, too.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 04:45 pm (UTC)No, they don't teach
properany grammar in schools. Direct and indirect objects? Nothing, when faced with people who say "Uhhhh... what's a noun?". Word can put a wavy green underline there to tell you it's the passive voice (I think it can, anyway; I use OpenOffice), but I'd much prefer it if people knew what to do with that information.I do not expect you will be impressed by my user icons.
Date: 2005-08-02 05:35 pm (UTC)Thus, consider yourself friended by me. I can't tell you whether you should consider that a compliment or a curse; that'll be up to you to decide.
Re: I do not expect you will be impressed by my user icons.
Date: 2005-08-02 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 06:36 pm (UTC)stalkingfriending you. Anyone who can critique the nouns used in stupid advertisements is clearly my ally in the fight for justice for the poor abused English language.Would you happen to have read Eats Shoots and Leaves? I keep my copy next to my Bible, which has made many visitors nervous.
And since you know of Terry Pratchett, you must also know how important spelling is as well as grammar. Lest everything you touch turn to Glod.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 07:00 pm (UTC)And it made me all kinds of happy when I learned that the US version is exactly the same as the Rest-Of-The-World one.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:11 pm (UTC)Force it through a sieve?
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:12 pm (UTC)Great minds apparently think alike.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-02 10:15 pm (UTC)