"Bitter, party of one, your table is ready."

Okay, so a work-related shituation has left me feeling a wee bit owly. I admit it. I am salty like popcorn right about now. So, in this frame of mind, I have decided to bring to you my twit list. This is a list of malapropisms, incorrect idioms, mispronunciations, and abused analogies. While sometimes it's funny to hear these errors being committed, it's usually just annoying to those of us who actually PAID to go to school and learn this stuff, yet have to listen to our language being butchered by one of our own. As a country whose inhabitants are now being referred to (unsurprisingly, by the French) as "hamburger-eating invasion monkeys", the U.S. already has enough to be embarassed about. If you're ESL, you get a free pass. But please learn from this list, lest I decide to mock you the next time you tell me you're "fustrated". Gah.

So, obviously, first on our list (in no particular order) is people who omit the first "r" out of the word "frustrated". It is not FUS-trated. It is FRUS-trated. Pay attention. Because it's ironically frustrating to those of us who have to listen to you.

And when something on your body is itchy, you do not "itch" it. You "scratch" it. It's already itchy, see? So why would you itch something that's already itchy? Seems kind of obvious to me, but I've lost count of how many people say, "I need to itch my eye" or whatever. Scratch it.

In the car today, my co-friend (this is my new term for cool coworkers that you actually like as people, but don't want to assume they'll put you in their 'friend' category just yet) J mentioned how a former coworker of his used to butcher the phrase "moot point". Of course, he'd say, "mute point". To which J would hilariously reply, "what?" and make the I-can't-hear-you-cupping-the-ear motion. Which then would prompt another, louder repetition of "IT'S A MUTE POINT". To which J would again, say "Eh?". It's "MOOT", people. Like a cow spitting at the end of "moo". Moooooo-t.

Irregardless. This word, technically, does not exist. To argue my point, define the word "regardless". It means something to the effect of "in spite of", correct? Correct. Webster says. So, then, define for me "irregardless". Can't do it, can ya? Didn't think so. That's because it MAKES NO SENSE.

I'd like to ferret out the origin of some of these misunderstandings. Especially when "ferret out" turned into "fare out" recently amongst certain members of my team at work. That's just laziness, really. Would pronouncing the extra syllable kill you? The shame of it is, it's not that they don't want to pronounce an extra syllable, they really just don't understand the phrase. Embarassing.

When one sees things that are outside of the normal field of vision, it is "peripheral"
(pə-ˈri-f(ə-)rəl) vision. For those who don't understand that, it's "PER-IF-ER-AL". Not "peripheal" (PER-IF-EE-AL).

For all intents and purposes, this blog is where I can come to say these things. Not "for all intensive purposes" or "for all intense and purposes".

I'm glad I'm writing all of this and not saying it, because it might make my larynx hurt. Which, incidentally, is pronounced "LAR-INKS". Not "LAR-NICKS". I was at a great party this weekend, playing board games, when a heated debate arose about the pronunciation of this word. Interestingly, I had never heard it mispronounced before. Although I suppose the lack of the occurrence of the word "larynx" in casual conversation is not surprising. Those who swore it was pronounced "LAR-NICKS" believed it to be true because a doctor had pronounced it that way. Let's just hope that doctor was not performing a laryngectomy.

Granted, everybody makes mistakes. However, mistaking the word "granted" for "granite"? You know who you are.

Oh, and there's only two syllables in "Realtor". REEL-TOR. Why do I hear "REEL-A-TOR" from scads of people, most of whom are actually working in realty-related fields? Maybe I'm just a stickler. That's probably a safe assumption, now that I think of it. I'm definitely a stickler.

Do I even need to go into "nu-cu-lar"? Didn't think so. Could somebody please send that link to W.? Nevermind. There's no getting that toothpaste back in the tube now.

Oh well, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Not, as Snoop would have us all think, a "doggy-dog" world.

This is definitely only a partial list... I have many more, but we all know what my memory is like these days. And it's probably a mercy that I don't have all of them just festering beneath the surface, because who knows how tetchy I'd be then?