The Little Things

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it is too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

The English language is one of the least organized ways to communicate in the world today. The structure of thoughts has a tendency to be weak and poorly planed as well as the words used to build them. I say that if the building is damaged, you need to look at the bricks. If the language is disturbingly inadequate, then perhaps the words and phrases are the problem.

We say things in everyday life that may make no sense, but they have become such commonplace sayings that we assume they have a meaning.

One such saying of this sort is "more than you can shake a stick at". Now does this really make any sense? If you had enough time, I would think you could shake a stick at any amount of things. I shake sticks at things all the time, and I have yet to find more than I could shake a stick at. Or perhaps the amount of the subject is proportional to the size of the stick. If SGA were to, say, secretly cut the budgets of nine organizations, do I need a nine-foot stick too? That would mean that you should say that's more budget cuts than you can shake an eight-foot stick at. This would solve part of the clarity issue of our rusty old language.

Another one of these that I hear all the time is "I would sell my soul for ". This seems very presumptuous. By the way, for all you overly argumentative people out there, let us just assume that someone would have a soul and that it would be theirs to sell, OK? Thank you. Stating that you would sell your soul for, say, a vibrating or massaging La-Z-Boy recliner would imply that your soul is worth 3000-dollars. Now I can't speak for the devil, but I wouldn't even pay 3000-lira for your soul. Why would your soul be worth jack? I know what you do in your spare time…Tech News has the videos and still photos, and believe me, that stuff devalues your soul a lot. I'm willing to offer you a Santa Pez dispenser and a wall calendar from 1985. Final offer.

Have you ever said that anyone "got under your skin"? I mean come on people, do you expect me to believe that this guy is a midget of cellular proportions who can get under your skin? Hey, wait…that isn't a half bad idea. With an army of those I could rule the world. *Note to self- genetically engineer an army of super midgets for use in conquering the world*.

My final example is "catching some Z's". I take my hobby of collecting and displaying tropical and exotic Z's very seriously. I even have the now endangered Canadian dotted Zed in my collection. If you people are just going to ridicule my passion, then I am just going to take my things and go…Good Bye!