min-uh-SOAH-tah
 

If you've ever wanted to know how to properly pronounce the names of your favorite Minnesotan lawmakers, here are the official pronunciation guides:

For State House Members.

For State Senators.

MIN-uh-SOO-tah
 

It is a sad day when Minnesotans need to be instructed on how to pronounce Knoblach (with or without a "u").

Recockculous Headline
 

From the New York Times, no less:

Tests Suggest Scientists Have Found Big Bang Goo

"Big Bang," eh?

dubya-speak
 

http://www.dubyaspeak.com/

I could have posted this on the Politics Board, but the linguistic artifacts* were just so atrocious.


* E.g., "At this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly outta Ronald Reagan Airport." -- At a press conference, Oct. 2, 2001. Listen to it here. [SPREE: AUDIO with boisterous applause rather than laughter.]

Apparently, many timmies have been slaving away at Wikipedia to provide encyclopedic entries for terms such as Crapflooding, Slashdot trolling phenomena, and The Chewbacca Defense.

The Unix dorks are better at this than we are. Oh, the humanity!

Teach Yourself to Read Chaucer's Middle English

Much to my astonishment, "Middle English for Dummies" does not exist (because Google said so).

The Campaign Against 'Like'
 

As Ex-Valley Girls (and Boys) Move Up the Ladder, Pressure Grows to Sound Professional

Two decades after the song "Valley Girl" popularized it, a fresh effort is afoot to stamp out this linguistic quirk. The generation that grew up saying "like" is hitting adulthood -- and the work force. As a result, it is now in the lexicon of investment bankers, doctors and even teachers, where it can sound especially jarring.

A link to the song "Valley Girl" is here (each occurrence of "like" is highlighted in yellow).

The Campaign Against 'Like'
 

I have a hard time taking seriously a Philly professor named "Muffy." Wasn't she a character in "Trading Places"?

I would never have expected this:

I think interrupting another person mid-sentence should be punishable by death. My parents beat that habit out of me, and I shouldn't be placed at a disadvantage because of common courtesy.

The Middle English version is in the works, I'm sure.
 

It's all Greek to Harry Potter

A teacher has translated the first Harry Potter book into classical Greek. . . . it is the longest text to have been translated into the ancient language in 1,500 years. . . . The book will come out later this year, along with the Irish Gaelic version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

What's next? Harry Potter in Elvish?

Gag me with a spoon
 

Yeah, right. More like hitting middle age. "Valley Girl" was popular in, like, 1982. Folks who were in high school then are, like, between 36 and 40. Who, like, writes this stuff, anyway?

[Please read bold as uptalk.]

Gag me with a spoon
 

totally.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 

Thanks to a semicolon, gays and lesbians keep marrying in San Francisco

Two judges delayed taking any action Tuesday to shut down San Francisco's same-sex wedding spree, citing court procedures as they temporarily rebuffed conservative groups enraged that the city's liberal politicians had already married almost 2,400 gay and lesbian couples.

The second judge told the plaintiffs that they would likely succeed on the merits eventually, but that for now, he couldn't accept their proposed court order because of a punctuation error.

It all came down to a semicolon, the judge said.

"I am not trying to be petty here, but it is a big deal ... That semicolon is a big deal," said San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren.

The Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund had asked the judge to issue an order commanding the city to "cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before this court."

"The way you've written this it has a semicolon where it should have the word 'or'," the judge told them. "I don't have the authority to issue it under these circumstances."
. . .
Lawyers for both sides then spent hours arguing about punctuation and court procedures during the hearing, which was still continuing late Tuesday afternoon.


Tsk. Tsk.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 

I don't think I've ever appeared in front of a California superior court judge who felt em somehow lacked the authority to interlineate a typed proposed order with additional language or punctuation. Some of them even find it within themselves to do so without consulting the parties, and some even draft their own orders from scratch! Bizarre that.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 

What's next, objecting to a [Proposed] Order because it would require striking through the bracketed material. Good god, he should be embarrased. Has he no balls?