Be Gentle In the Morning, Give 'em Hell in the Afternoon
Today started with a very gentle morning. I awoke to find a beautiful woman in my arms. No matter that she had stolen the entire bed and pushed my head and pillow off, no matter that she was slowly over the course of the night rotating 90 degrees to end up crosswise on the bed.
This morning was a time for gentleness. Light caresses and a kiss on the cheek to wake her, quiet jokes and shared cigarettes.
So gentle in fact that when I got to work and the first song WMP played was the Firefly Theme, I got all choked up.
But now all of that is fading like the details of a dream, and I remember a conversation I had with Austin last night.
He claims that spelling 'whore' without the 'W' is acceptable in print.
I of course argued. He said that he had seen it written that way, to which I interrupted with 'the internet doesn't count, and neither does Stephen King,' which of course was a bit of a low blow. He called me an ass, and I explained that I am reading the Dark Tower series right now, and that I can say whatever the hell I want to about King.
He maintained that he had seen 'whore' written without the w, and not just on the internet, to which I replied, "Site me one."
He brought up Comic Books, and I refrained from saying what I was thinking, being as that is his genre of choice for creative outlet.
I was thinking that Comic books have never set the standard on anything but tight costumes and bad plot lines, and if there are comics out there that spell 'whore' without the 'W', then that just affirms the opinion of every English major, English teacher, and well read individual out there that comics don't live up to the standards of modern literature that even Stephen King follows.
In the Neverending Story, when Bastion takes refuge in the bookstore, the old man tells him he has no video games. Bastion replies with something along the lines of I love books, I've read loads.
to which the shop owner replies, derisively, Comic Books.
Then Bastion starts spouting off all the classics he's read, and the shop owner looks at him with an expression of incredulity.
In conclusion, I know I'm right about this, if only to use the internet as a reference and say that when googling the phrase "stupid hore" I got about 41,000 hits. When I googled "stupid whore", I got over 2 million.
I told him that what he is doing to the English language is exactly what the French did, except the French added their language to the vernacular as a show of dominance and attempted 'civilizing the barbarians,' whereas he is changing the vernacular to be 'easier' through ignorance and laziness.
That's not OK, and not the same thing at all.
He replied with 'a word only has to be in five books to make it into the dictionary.
Then I laughed in his face.
Mirriam-Webster has this to say about adding words to the dictionary;
"To be included in a Merriam-Webster dictionary, a word must be used in a substantial number of citations that come from a wide range of publications over a considerable period of time."
The Internet is exponentially increasing both the amount of knowledge available to the common person, and the ease of ignoring it all.
You can't hide willful ignorance, and 99 times out of 100 trying to hide it only shows said ignorance more plainly.
This morning was a time for gentleness. Light caresses and a kiss on the cheek to wake her, quiet jokes and shared cigarettes.
So gentle in fact that when I got to work and the first song WMP played was the Firefly Theme, I got all choked up.
But now all of that is fading like the details of a dream, and I remember a conversation I had with Austin last night.
He claims that spelling 'whore' without the 'W' is acceptable in print.
I of course argued. He said that he had seen it written that way, to which I interrupted with 'the internet doesn't count, and neither does Stephen King,' which of course was a bit of a low blow. He called me an ass, and I explained that I am reading the Dark Tower series right now, and that I can say whatever the hell I want to about King.
He maintained that he had seen 'whore' written without the w, and not just on the internet, to which I replied, "Site me one."
He brought up Comic Books, and I refrained from saying what I was thinking, being as that is his genre of choice for creative outlet.
I was thinking that Comic books have never set the standard on anything but tight costumes and bad plot lines, and if there are comics out there that spell 'whore' without the 'W', then that just affirms the opinion of every English major, English teacher, and well read individual out there that comics don't live up to the standards of modern literature that even Stephen King follows.
In the Neverending Story, when Bastion takes refuge in the bookstore, the old man tells him he has no video games. Bastion replies with something along the lines of I love books, I've read loads.
to which the shop owner replies, derisively, Comic Books.
Then Bastion starts spouting off all the classics he's read, and the shop owner looks at him with an expression of incredulity.
In conclusion, I know I'm right about this, if only to use the internet as a reference and say that when googling the phrase "stupid hore" I got about 41,000 hits. When I googled "stupid whore", I got over 2 million.
I told him that what he is doing to the English language is exactly what the French did, except the French added their language to the vernacular as a show of dominance and attempted 'civilizing the barbarians,' whereas he is changing the vernacular to be 'easier' through ignorance and laziness.
That's not OK, and not the same thing at all.
He replied with 'a word only has to be in five books to make it into the dictionary.
Then I laughed in his face.
Mirriam-Webster has this to say about adding words to the dictionary;
"To be included in a Merriam-Webster dictionary, a word must be used in a substantial number of citations that come from a wide range of publications over a considerable period of time."
The Internet is exponentially increasing both the amount of knowledge available to the common person, and the ease of ignoring it all.
You can't hide willful ignorance, and 99 times out of 100 trying to hide it only shows said ignorance more plainly.
posted by Hadrian: Dark One at 12:09 PM
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