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Sunday, 30 March 2008 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosiedoesYou know what really aggravates me? Aside from, y'know, most things?
The American habit of fucking up sentence structure. I thought this was a recent development, but no - I just caught the last minute and a half of Airwolf, and they did it even then!
"Mr Hawke, you've taught me that everything in the outside world is not to be feared."
Read that again: EVERYTHING IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS NOT TO BE FEARED.
That sentence implies that everything in the world is safe. Everything is not to be feared. Heights, death, venomous snakes, axe-weilding psychopaths, Evangelists: not to be feared. Broken rails on your rollercoaster: not to be feared. Your baby sticking its fingers in plug sockets: not to be feared.
Why? Because EVERYTHING! IS: NOT TO BE FEARED.
:|
You know what the guy really meant? He meant NOT EVERYTHING IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS TO BE FEARED. Yeah, maybe some things do need to be feared: broken bungee ropes, fire, Republicans. But not everything needs to be feared. Fluffy kittens, the Easter Bunny, trolls: not to be feared.
Other examples?
"Well, we all can't fit in the car!" - all of you can't? Why? How small is the car? (Or, more likely, how big are you?) Oh, wait, you mean "You can't all fit in the car"? Because there aren't enough seats for all of you? Why didn't you say so?
"You always can't do this!" He always can't? But he just did! That's why you said it. Did you mean, "You can't always do this?" as in, he can't do this to you all the time? THEN FUCKING SAY THAT!
Seriously, America. The spellings I can handle but changing a sentence around so that the subject becomes something other than what you mean? Is just confusing. And wrong. Please stop.
Edit:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scoobygang63 just made the following excellent point:
-- srsly.
The American habit of fucking up sentence structure. I thought this was a recent development, but no - I just caught the last minute and a half of Airwolf, and they did it even then!
"Mr Hawke, you've taught me that everything in the outside world is not to be feared."
Read that again: EVERYTHING IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS NOT TO BE FEARED.
That sentence implies that everything in the world is safe. Everything is not to be feared. Heights, death, venomous snakes, axe-weilding psychopaths, Evangelists: not to be feared. Broken rails on your rollercoaster: not to be feared. Your baby sticking its fingers in plug sockets: not to be feared.
Why? Because EVERYTHING! IS: NOT TO BE FEARED.
:|
You know what the guy really meant? He meant NOT EVERYTHING IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS TO BE FEARED. Yeah, maybe some things do need to be feared: broken bungee ropes, fire, Republicans. But not everything needs to be feared. Fluffy kittens, the Easter Bunny, trolls: not to be feared.
Other examples?
"Well, we all can't fit in the car!" - all of you can't? Why? How small is the car? (Or, more likely, how big are you?) Oh, wait, you mean "You can't all fit in the car"? Because there aren't enough seats for all of you? Why didn't you say so?
"You always can't do this!" He always can't? But he just did! That's why you said it. Did you mean, "You can't always do this?" as in, he can't do this to you all the time? THEN FUCKING SAY THAT!
Seriously, America. The spellings I can handle but changing a sentence around so that the subject becomes something other than what you mean? Is just confusing. And wrong. Please stop.
Edit:
scoobygang63 just made the following excellent point:Similarly, I get very confused by sentences like "I could care less!" as opposed to "I couldn't care less!". Surely the former means you DO care, even if it's just a teensy bit, but what it seems to mean to the people who use it is the latter example, that they really don't care at all. Very confusing.
-- srsly.
no subject
on 2008-03-31 07:01 am (UTC)Yet they're very formal - where we'd start off saying George Bush and then refer to him as Bush, they'd say Mr. Bush, note the full stop after Mr., which is pretty obsolete here. Similarly it's always U.S.A.