"Friends don't let friends poke hamsters, aight?"

"I shall express myself as I am".

Not that I'm Joyce or anything...er wait, should that be any thing? On this one Scalzi(Correct Grammar Be Upon Him) can bite me.

All your hamsters are belong to us.

Alright, I'll stop.

*poke*

Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright!

PS: I loathe hamsters.

We played at a tournament this weekend in Cordova, TN and damn if there wasn't an unnecessary apostrophe everywhere I looked. Teams that were the "10's" and "11's" and "9's".

DAMN.

Who are these sign makers? Is there not ONE among them who will say, "Hey, Arlington 10s? THERE IS NO APOSTROPHE SO I LEFT IT OFF YOUR SIGN."

Apparently not.

I wonder if the IRS will let us pay our tax bill in hamsters.

Gotta love that Tennessee public education. Glad we homeschool. A'ight?

Well alright so Scalzi's prudish,
Well alright it's a thing I say,
Well alright so he get's nude-ish,
When those cuties crawl his way.

Well alright
Well alright
He will give them love (although it's tight)
Well alright
Well alright
The Habitrail will rock alnight...

You know, I'm perfectly willing to accept "alright" as a locution (I may even have used it myself) if by its use we can squash out the dreadful "a'ight" pronunciation.

And yes, I know people have used it facetiously here, but it really IS dreadful and it makes my skin crawl to hear a college student say it, almost as much as my skin crawls when they talk about "aksing" someone something.

Yes, yes, I know: non-standard English. Yes, yes, I know, I'm probably being oppressive in some way by preferring non-marble-mouthed pronunciation.

And Lisa: the apostrophe thing bugs the heck out of me. I suppose you've seen Bob the Angry Flower's take on it

The British are guilty of it, too--the band Cast put out a song called "Alright." I hate that it's a good song despite the misspelled title.

Ricki: Ohhh yeah. . . when I was waiting for my hair appointment a couple of weeks ago, a fellow brought in the sign he was working on, to show the owner: "Walk-in's welcome."

The owner was so over the moon she didn't see me cringing on the sofa behind a magazine. Drove by the salon this week and yup, the sign's up. Late night vandalism- I mean, correction. . . it's tempting.

The word alright-

::poke::

doesn't really bother me, although (or is it all though?) I can see how it would bug a grammar purist. One word does make me want to have a hamster poke God in the butt, though: irre-fucking-gardless. I swear that it should be legal to slap anyone, anywhere, who says that craptastic non-word. Regardless is a word. So is irrespective. Irregardless -AARGGHH!- is not. So please: stop saying it. And bitchslap your friends into not saying it. Otherwise, our Deity will fart on the impudent hamster and that would be a pity.

Yeah, "alright" doesn't actually bother me too much either. "irregardless" does bigtime.

I think my hand involuntarily comes out and slaps anyone heard saying, "Irregardless." Yuck.

Two of my fave grammar peeves:

Utilize. Just say "use."
Gift. This is a NOUN. It is possibly an adjective ("You are gifted") or past participle ("You have been gifted.") But it is NOT a verb. One GIVES a gift, one does not GIFT a gift. Blech.

Of course one does not "gift a gift". Why would you give a gift to a gift?

But it actually can be a verb, provided one gifts a recipient and especially provided one only uses it VERY sparingly.