Meet The Breeds: A day with hundreds of dogs, the two of us, and Mario Lopez

Yesterday we went to the AKC’s Meet The Breeds event at the Javits Center. You can read about the event here. As an animal novice (at best), it was pretty cool seeing all sorts of dogs that I’d never heard of, and got to see them up close. I was never much of a “pet guy”, but of late, rumors have it my tastes may have somewhat changed and would consider perhaps maybe getting a dog of some variety. The show was really enlightening for me, and was really fun. Each breed had its own booth with dogs and owners/experts in the breed to answer questions. I generally gravitate towards the larger dogs, because the glorified hairy rats, the “ankle biters”, always just seemed like more of a nuisance than a real dog. I loved seeing the huge dogs, like Bull Mastiffs, Cane Corsos, Anatolian Shepherd Dogs, and Saint Bernards, that look more like small horses than dogs. I always thought that if I got a dog it should be the kind that if we bump into each other, I’m the one who gets the worst of it. I did, however, realize the impracticality of the huge dogs, and that unfortunately they’re historically guard dogs, and I would prefer a more friendly breed, not one liable to use a guest’s leg as a chew toy. I figure we’ll probably end up with a mid-sized dog, and right now the favorite appears to be the lab. I prefer the yellow, Dina prefers chocolate/black. This wouldn’t be for a while, anyway, it was just a really fun time.

Why is Mario Lopez listed? Patience – I’ll tell you. He was there doing some sort of promotional something, i.e., I haven’t a clue. It was amusing watching him chase after tiny dogs and look like a horse’s patoot trying to look cool doing it. He also seemed really short and appeared to be wearing a remarkable amount of makeup. Yikes.

Not so law abiding – punctuation-wise, anyway

There is all sorts of hoopla over the new Jaime Foxx movie “Law Abiding Citizen”. You can read about it here, if you’d like.

I could be wrong, but shouldn’t it be “Law-Abiding”? If I understand this correctly, law-abiding is a compound adjective, which would require a hyphen.

I shall quote Rule 4 from Grammar Book:

Rule 4.

Generally, hyphenate between two or more adjectives when they come before a noun and act as a single idea.

Examples: friendly-looking man  (compound adjective in front of a noun)

friendly little girl  (not a compound adjective)

brightly lit room (Brightly is an adverb describing lit, not an adjective.)

If I’m correct, it wouldn’t be the first movie/TV show to make grammar/punctuation mistakes. I’m sure we all remember the 2002 film “Two Weeks Notice” with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. I’m sure you’re all yelling out now, WHERE IS THE APOSTROPHE AFTER WEEKS?!?!?! How does a movie go from the glimmer in the writer’s eye until the film’s release without anyone noticing? The TBS show “Ten Items or Less” also really gets to me. When you are referring to a counting noun, “items” in this case, the correct usage is fewer. For some reason, it appears that most supermarket owners have yet to learn the rule either.

You can rest assured knowing some of us are vigilant about these sorts of things, so you don’t have to.

Well, thanks for telling us now!

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has confessed that the // in a web address were actually “unnecessary”. You can read the BBC story by clicking here. Granted, thirty years ago probably would have been a better time to think that out, but I do find his apology rather nice.

As annoying as it is, and despite the countless people that have probably gone mad because of the slashes, I would still rather have my internet.

I guess what I’m saying is really thank you for creating the internet!

Making stairs more fun = fewer people on escalators?

Found this video online. Would more people take the stairs if it was more “fun”?

Click here for Piano Stairs video

I don’t know if I’d be any more likely to take the stairs, but I’d probably try to play something if I did. Fun times!

Hut! The Story Behind a Football Interjection

Found this interesting. Thought I’d share this article written by Ben Zimmer about the origin of the popular interjection used by just about every football team (Hut!). I did take special pleasure in noting that the only person who knew the origin was the head coach of my favorite team, Tom Coughlin (of the New York Giants). 5-0 and counting!

How come nobody invited me?

I would have loved to go to the Egar Allan Poe “funeral” and pay respects to one of the best writers ever (my opinion, of course). You can see video of the funeral here:

The video

Such a pity that so few people attended his real funeral.  It’s sad how many famous artists/authors/musicians never reached their apex in popularity until after their death. Sad sad sad.

After Deadline – New York Times blog

After Deadline

I recently found out about a really interesting blog from the New York Times, called  After Deadline.

I imagine that the vast majority of attention directed towards the newspaper is regarding the content and/or political leaning of the articles, and really appreciate the dedication to the clarification and correction of the grammar, style,  and word usage that made it to print. There’s a certain candidness about the way its written – it almost comes off as apologetic for not upholding the standards to which the editors aspire.

After Deadline examines questions of grammar, usage and style encountered by writers and editors of The Times. It is adapted from a weekly newsroom critique overseen by Philip B. Corbett, the deputy news editor, who is also in charge of The Times’s style manual.

While I more readily consider the likelihood of making an error using the subjunctive mood, I was pretty surprised at the number of words that were just mixed up, like pore/pour, interred/interned, and adverse/averse, which appear to be more a lack of editing than a stylistic mistake.

I think it’s kind of cool that they are willing to fess up, for what it’s worth, after-the-fact.  It’s also fairly encouraging that even a world-renowned newspaper like the Times is still “human” when it comes to writing mistakes. Fun times.

Literally outraged

A while back, I looked up the word “literally” in the dictionary. What I found horrified me. Behold:

lit·er·al·ly
1 : in a literal sense or manner : actually; <took the remark literally> <was literally insane>;
2 : in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins>
usage Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.

Is this some sort of cruel joke? How can a word mean both actually AND virtually?? Of course, literally is the adverb of literal, defined as:

lit·er·al
1 a: according with the letter of the scriptures b: adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression :actual <liberty in the literal sense is impossible — B. N. Cardozo> c: free from exaggeration or embellishment <the literal truth> d: characterized by a concern mainly with facts <a very literal man>
2 : of, relating to, or expressed in letters
3 : reproduced word for word : exact, verbatim <a literal translation>

Where exactly is the need to water down a word to fit the incorrect usage? While this isn’t the first time the definition of a word has completely done an about-face, if you want to change the meaning of the word, at least change the entire definition to “virtually”. Now any time somebody uses the word literally they need to be asked whether they actually mean literally, or do they mean “in effect”? Until now, if someone posed that question, they might be seen as a ninny – some sort of pretentious word-corrector who is out to make themselves look smart. Now, I’m not so sure. I don’t quite know how often there’s a vital distinction between the two usages, but to institutionalize the double usage just seems wrong to me.

Change of intentions

From now on (we’ll see if it actually happens),  I will most likely post things (links, thoughts, etc.) here in lieu of barraging people on Facebook.

As I said, we’ll see…