Driving Responsibly - A Request

Ok, everybody knows the rules.  Everybody knows they should do this, not do that, etc.  So I'm not going to say anything about the safe/legal responsibilities.  Rather, I'm going to make a single, simple request to try and remember that there is one time and place above all others where you need to be paying very close attention.

Stopped at a light in position #1.

When you are at the front of the line, you have a sacred responsibility to everybody behind you to pay attention to the light.

If you're in position 2, 3, or further back, you can get away with paying just enough attention to notice if the car in front of you is moving.  But if you find yourself in the honored front of the line position, then you are saddled with added responsibility.  A trust. A duty.

This duty becomes even more important in construction zones and at left-turn arrows where traffic becomes backed up and the length of time you have to make it through the intersection is extremely precious.  When both of these added factors combine, you are at the pinnacle of driving responsibility.  You hold the fates of many in your hands.

Becoming distracted in such a situation can mean the difference between 1 car or 5 getting through the light.  And if you're so far out of it that you don't notice the light has changed until it's yellow again, you are not only asking for a hefty helping of angry honking, but you might also be in for a negligence-induced beating.

Of course, I'm not condoning vigilante justice, or even violence as a means to solve issues of road-rage.  But I am making a desperate plea for all responsible people everywhere to please take this duty seriously.  If you were unable to make it through the green/yellow/orangish light, then you have taken a great yoke upon your shoulders.  They yoke of responsibly watching for the next green.

An otherwise furious follower will thank you.

With Regard to Ir-

English is a difficult language, American English in particular. It is particularly difficult for people learning English as a second or third language; it is even more difficult for them when those of us who speak it as a first language ignore or simply don’t bother learning the rules ourselves.

This blog is going to be a rant. A personal, angry tirade against the misuse of words simply because of the lackadaisical way we Americans treat the English language. Enough is enough. Let us be proud of our language enough to at least learn when it is appropriate to adulterate it, and when it is not.

Sometimes, when people chuckle, they also snort. This leads us to a natural combination of the words chuckle and snort: Chortle. I believe it was Charles Dickens who gave us this word (interestingly, a similar combination of his names gives us Chickens, though I doubt that is where this word came from).

When people become flustered, they also often become frustrated, hence we have the obnoxious, yet reasonable word flustrated.

The above two paragraphs are indications of situations where it is acceptable to adulterate the language. I will now provide an instance of when it is not.

Regardless:

Adj. Having or showing no regard.

Adv. Without concern as to advice etc.

Idiom. In spite of, without regard for.

Irrespective:

Adj. without regard to something else.

As you can see from the similarities of the definitions of these two words, it should be reasonable to combine them to create a new, more powerful, all-inclusive word: irregardless.

But it is not reasonable to do so.

The prefix ir- denotes opposition. It is similar to the prefixes un-, ex-, dis-, and de-. Consider the word responsible: Attach the prefix ir-, and suddenly the word irresponsible stares us in the face. If I tell you that I was too lazy to make oatmeal and instead fed my 2 year old a hot fudge sundae Pop-Tart for breakfast, all joking aside, would you think I was being responsible or irresponsible?

You begin to see the power of the prefix ir-. I call it an oppositizer.

By the rules, irregardless cannot be a combination of regardless and irrespective, as it is the opposite of these words. Note that irrespective iteself starts with ir- and is therefore an opposite of its root word respective. Thus irregardless is synonymous with respective, and therefore, opposite of irrespective, and therefore mathematically proved as an opposite to regardless.

What an awful paragraph that was. I hope you all made it through safely.

Sadly for me, the word irregardless has been misused so often and by so many people that it has actually been added to some dictionaries as a synonym to regardless. This despite the fact (regardless of the fact) that they are essentially polar opposites of one another.

Intelligent people with whom I’ve had this or similar conversations have often used the generally legitimate argument that “language is always evolving” and that as long as the person speaking is understood by his intended listeners, then it doesn’t matter if the words used are the correct words or not. Successful communication has taken place.

While technically true, it shows a deep disrespect for the mechanics and the very intelligence which allow human language to exist at all. If we fall back on the lazy argument that “well, you understood me from the context,” we might as well go back to grunts and growls to get our point across.

It reminds me of a lamely humorous thing my cousins and I used to say when we were in Middle School: The word dude can mean anything you want, depending on how you say it. It is all about inflection, and facial affectations.

In many ways, that’s all language is: inflection and affectation. But it has evolved to be so much more than that, so much more reliable, precise, and indicative. While inflection and affectation remain important, indeed core, functions of language, we have specific words with specific meanings in order to more effectively transmit the information we need to convey. We have words which represent inflection and affectation in order to express these functions of language via the written word.

Who among us hasn’t secretly cringed a little at a friend, an acquaintance, a sibling, or a parent when we heard them say something like, “We was there an hour early.” Or “I seen them coming a mile away.” In the first case, “was” is a conjugation of the verb “to be,” and therefore correct… and yet still very much incorrect. Likewise “seen” is a past tense of “to see,” and yet it wasn’t the correct past tense.

If you’ve read this far, you probably already agree with me, so there’s nothing more to say about it. Keep up the good work. To all the rest of you (the minority who don’t agree but did read this far), I’d encourage you to make a well-thought-out argument in favor of misusing words in order to communicate more effectively, but I honestly doubt I’d read it. Maybe for a laugh, but I’d probably just end up with a raging headache.

After I wrote this blog, I did a quick Google search for "irregardless dictionary" since I once found a dictionary of stupid English (paraphrasing). I thought I'd link it here. Instead I came across a Grammar Girl article (Grammar Girl is a really good resource for when you're trying to remember the rules for things like lay vs. lie etc.) about regardless vs. irregardless. So I'm linking it instead. She just set my mind at ease about why irregardless is in some dictionaries. Phew! I can sleep again.

Customer Service - Shouldn't It Extend to Job Applicants?

For a little over a year, now, I’ve been casually looking for a new, better-paying, better-benefits-offering, better-hours-giving job. Due to some very specific circumstances that job search has become less-casual and more frantic over the past month.

Tammy has also been on the prowl for better employment for a little over a year.

During this period of job-hunting we’ve made some observations that I want to share: Potential employers don’t care. The people handling applications need to receive some training from the company Public Relations and/or Marketing Departments.

Here’s what they are forgetting: As a prospective employee, I am also a potential customer. This doesn’t mean you have to hire me, it doesn’t mean you even have to interview me. But in today’s hi-tech world of online job applications, it does mean that you, as a business, should at least have the customer-friendly courtesy to provide a minimal response to applicants. An automated email stating “Thank you for your application, it will be reviewed within [a given amount of time], at which point we will contact you. If we feel that your application meets our needs, and if the position is still open at that time, we will schedule an interview.”

And then, once the application has been processed, if they aren’t interested it is not a difficult process to set up an automated email that says nothing more than: “Thank you for your interest in [such and such a position] with our company. Unfortunately, we are unable to schedule you for an interview at this time due to the position having already been filled, your qualifications are not exactly what we are looking for, or due to unforeseen circumstances, we are no longer able to fill the position as expected.”

Of course, this last option would need to be written better, but it could say basically the same thing. Maybe tack on a “We apologize for the form letter, however we hope you can imagine the necessity as we receive hundreds of applications every month, and to keep our costs low for our customers, we need to stream-line our services wherever possible.” And yes, this is probably not the best wording for the apology, either, but you get the point.

Having applied for dozens of jobs over the past 12-18 months, I believe that between the two of us, Tammy and I have received exactly four responses from potential employers letting us know that they were not interested. In Tammy’s case, she even had interviews (sometimes multiple interviews with the same employer) where the employer didn’t bother following up, in the end, to let her know they decided to go with somebody else.

In her case, as a math teacher, she’s not really a potential customer, since few (if any) of her applications were within our school district; however, in my case, all of my applications have been to businesses that I could potentially patronize. With very limited exceptions, I do have choices as to whether or not to use their services. Example: I’ve applied for jobs at Comcast, Dish Network, and DirecTV. Two of them responded to my applications. One of the responses was better than the other. Now, if we ever decide to get more than broadcast TV, I know which one of these companies will be my first choice, which will be my second. And that I’m least likely to consider Comcast.

< /soapbox >

Oh the Wretchedness of Being Me

After my 2-in-1 rant I thought about starting a whole new blog at www.soapbox.blogspot.com but somebody already has that one and I didn't feel like taking 3-12 hours trying to find a clever title that was both available and likely. So I'll stick with ranting on my family blog. By the way, have you ever noticed that all the really good domain names are not only always taken, but are not even being used? That's a rant for another day, I suppose.

Anyway, today's whine er... rant:

I drink Arrowhead bottled water. I like the taste (or lack thereof). But about a year ago they changed their bottles: They made the plastic thinner (I imagine they did it in some scheme to appear more green). Now I can't open one without squeezing the bottle too tight, forcing water up and out under the cap! I've tried gripping the very base - no joy; I've tried gripping around the neck where physics ensures the the narrowness of the neck will not permit the plastic to squeeze - but no, my hands are too big, the neck too small, and there is not even a phantom of leverage to speak of.

Ok, so a little water dribbling down the side of the bottle is not a big deal. However, water also gets trapped under the plastic ring (that seals the cap before it is first opened). Trapped, that is, until I take a swig. At that point, the water dribbles down my chin and onto my shirt, making me look like the latest victim of novelty-cup wit.

Who designs these things? Who approves them? Who quality-tests them? and is it wrong to want to beat them all with a wet fish?

I've taken to buying the larger bottles that have the blueish flip-top lid. I started buying them because then I didn't have to worry about the spillage, but quickly discovered that the water passing through the lid (which is made of some different plastic than the rest of the bottle) picks up a plasticky flavor that is, shall we say, less than savory. So I started unscrewing the whole cap. And you know what? These bottles are still made with the heavier/denser/thicker plastic that the other bottles used to be made out of. Now I buy them because I can unscrew the cap without fear of squirting water all over my keyboard at home or at work. Joyous day!