Bump for this.

I know, it's been done to death, but I lol'd. Literally.

I am late on this thread, but I wanted to add the one thing that pisses me off more than anything. Has this already been posted?

I hate it when people incorrectly use semi-colons. It's like they just do it randomly. "Hey! I haven't used this button a while! Let's throw one in!" Sometimes they do it in place of a comma. Other times they do it in place of a regular colon. It's so frustrating because everyone does it. I'm convinced no one on the face of the Earth knows how to use a semi-colon.

Bull****; I do.

It's useful in MATLAB.

I'm German, and in recent years everyone here has started to use the so-called "Deppen-Apostroph" (idiot-apostrophe) like in "Rita's Würstchenbude". The quote is around 85% so it might even become legal. We don't need that thing here. Lately, they even start using it for plurals too. Sigh.

My friend was "sexually harrassed" at work... What's my play?

Just a bit of background to the story; I work at a ****ty place and both my friend and I think so, but with the economy the way it is we also know that we are lucky to be working. I tell that in no way do I want to tell them what to do; but just as an opinion I think they should tell someone. The problem is that I have no other job, and even though this is a bad job; I haven't found another source of income yet.

If you don't consider it to be sexual harrassment in any form, if someone asked a girl if they'd like to sleep with him and after they say no; he continues to ask if she'd like to take a shower with him, then there's something seriously wrong with your judgement... Not a country where men have more rights than women, and maybe even to the outside world; locals and foreigners are treated with equal respect, but being a person who has lived here all my life I can tell you that this is not true at all.

I think at some point when you go around the company asking everyone to sleep with you; it becomes sexual harrassment even if you only asked each person once, which isn't even the case.. no?

Since this thread was bumped anyway:

should be a colon.

Has this been mentioned? When someone incorrectly says "that's why they call it _____". It has to have a double meaning to make sense. It's not exactly grammar or punctuation but a lot of people say it when it makes no sense.

For example, makes no sense:
Elton John's song, I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues. Why? Because when you sing it you turn blue?

Makes sense:
The old saying "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present."

GodDAMN that's a good one.

Of course, the one we've all heard the most is "I guess that's why they call it gambling."

Why? Because poker was invented in a town called Gambling?

What is "The Secrets of Happily Married Women" doing in there?

Those diet books tilt me more than the punctuation error(s).

Maybe he meant like "Boy, are you ready!"

Just wanted to mention that the title of this thread makes me chuckle every time I see it bumped. Considering that PJ also started the "shrill sewing circle outside my window" thread, I think it's pretty safe to say that he's the greatest thread title author on 2+2. That's all.

How does "blues" not have a double meaning in i guess thats why they call it the blues? The double meaning is the whole point of the song. to feel blue means to feel sad. Blues is also a kind of music.

obv one of the secrets is not to get fat?

I think you might be forgetting ZOMG NEW DECEMBERISTS ALBUM HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP IT!!!

He also started OMG WTF BBQ New Coen Brothers movie. He's an artiste.

Here's something that blew me away when I heard it last night for the first time. And I don't think it was posted in this thread.

Turns out it's not "you've got another thing coming," it's "you've got another think coming."

Crazy, yo.

Wow, I love that site you linked to PJ. I just found one of my pet peeves on it. There are so many crazy errors to browse and load into the arson all.

Backslash / Slash

I spend a lot of time in poker rooms, and here are a couple snapshots I took recently of the ol' Unncessary Apostrophe mistake.



This one doesn't even make sense even without the UA:

I hope that was intentional

she has to me misusing it because she was told previous that the other guy smoked 2 1/2 packs a day. Unless she just assumed he smoked 2.5 cigarettes at a time.

I would just like to point out:

"Impactful" is not a word.

Incorrect: Sarbaines-Oxley is an impactful piece of legislation.
Correct: The Sarbaines-Oxley legislation has had a great impact on the business world.
Best: The Sarbaines-Oxley legislation has greatly impacted the business world.

Also, neologize is not a word.

Incorrect: "Impactful" was neologized by some guys.
Correct: "Impactful" is a neologism.
Best: Sometimes new words enter the language.

Scientists are terrible about interjecting what they think is a new word they think they need to invent when they're really just oblivious to a word that already exists that means exactly what they are trying to concoct a word to mean. I read an article in Physical Review Letters, a very prestigious journal, where the author used the word "compactified" in the opening paragraph when "compacted" would have been absolutely appropriate. The one you see even more is "quantitate" (invented as a derivative of "quantitative") when "quantify" already exists and is exactly the word they should use. The use of "quantitate" is so pervasive in science that it's basically a lost cause to convince people it's not a word. It's entered the lexicon, to my chagrin.

It's a beautiful thing, this destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains the opposite in itself. Take 'good,' for instance. If you have a word like 'good,' what need is there for a word like 'bad'? 'Ungood' will do just as well - better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of of 'good,' what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like 'excellent' and 'splendid' and all the rest of them? 'Plusgood' covers the meaning, or 'doubleplusgood' if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words - in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty in that, Winston?