Comparing my fellow persons’ command of the English language to the earnest efforts of a fifteen-year-old boy fumbling to unclasp a brassiere swollen with promise and, um, tits, is great fun and all, but the voices in my head keep insisting that conveying criticism without offering compensating guidance makes me a dick. *

Therefore, today’s and future roundups of linguistic sins will come with handy mnemonic cues, lovingly crafted to aid my bretheren and sisteren in our mutual quest to communicate clearly and competently.

Here goes:

Think of “nauseous” as a cause. Something that is nauseous has the effect of being nauseating. If you say “I feel nauseous,” you are stating that you have the effect of nauseating others. Fine and well if true (perhaps it’s time to rethink the spandex?), but be sure that’s what you mean. An easy way to keep this straight is to substitute “noxious” (as in “noxious fumes”) for “nauseous” in your skull before opening your fool mouth.

See? Helpful.

Healthy versus healthful. Exercising is healthy. Nutritious foods are healthful. Therefore, stating that a carrot is healthy implies that it is watching what it eats and that it works out at the gym while doing its best to ignore you staring at its butt. I don’t really have a handy mnemonic for this one other than proferring the image of trying not to get caught staring at a carrot’s butt. Make it your own.

Compliment versus complement. I am reluctant even to bring this one up because people getting it wrong never fails to make me smile. “Compliment” means “to express praise,” whereas “complement” means “to enhance or complete.” So, it’s fine to say, “This wine complements the meal,” or “Asif complimented my dècolletage before ejaculating enthusiastically upon it.” To get this right, I offer this joke:

A man walks into an empty bar. While drinking his beer and munching on bar snacks, he hears a little voice say, “Nice tie.” Initially startled, he dismisses it as drifting noise, perhaps from a radio in the back. A short while later another voice says, “Love your haircut,” to which he replies, “What the hell is going on here?” The bartender comes out and asks, “Is there are problem?” The patron say, “Yeah, there’s a problem. I keep hearing little voices and they’re saying, um, nice things to me!” The bartender says, “Oh. That’s the pretzels. They’re complimentary.”

* I don’t want the voices to think I’m a dick. **

** I don’t care what you think.

Although it makes not one bit of difference to anyone with widely available wardriving tools, as a matter of practice I do not broadcast my Wi-Fi network’s SSID. Recently, however, I decided to turn it up and present the neighborhood soccer moms and investment bankers with this one:

8===D

It’s been a while since I bled off some of the bile that periodically threatens to bubble over as a result of the seemingling enthusiastic and willful dumbing down of the English language that assaults me on a constant basis. Today being my favorite occasion, Daylight Saving Time (not * savings time, you inbred mouthbreathers), I thought I would focus on some time-related boners that really chap my ass.

Ah, that ever elusive mistress the apostrophe. For fuck’s sake, it’s ’70s, not * 70′s. The apostrophe serves two purposes, truncation and possession (and never pluralization). “Can’t” is the truncation of “cannot.” “Bob’s” indicates that Bob possesses something, like a sombrero. “It’s” is a bit tricky. It’s (see what I did there?) a truncation of “it is”, while “its” indicates possession.

So, ’70s is a truncation of (usually) 1970s. One is lopping off the reference to the century to save time (see what I did there?), presumably to focus on hassling Muslims in airports. Writing 70′s indicates that the decade possesses something, which, like wearing bellbottom trousers or sporting collars large enough to be capable of generating lift, is very silly.

Intermission: “past experience.” A bit like “male sperm,” i.e., yes, as opposed to what other kind?

Finally, “within the hour.” People say this because it sounds fancier than “within a hour.” The two, however, do not mean the same thing, unless the time is at the top of the hour, which is actually a handy mnemonic to avoid sounding like a knuckle-dragging hominid putting on airs. Back in olden times when few people had watches and relied instead on the chimes of clocks and clock towers to keep track of time, “within the hour” was used to indicate that something would occur before the bell indicating the top of the next hour rung. So, if it’s 11:54 and one says that something will occur “within the hour” one is indicating that occurrence will be within six minutes. However, since it is time-consuming (see what I did there?) and potentially insulting to inquire whether or not the person speaking is a knuckle-dragging hominid putting on airs (unless it is of immediate concern or funny) every time someone says “within the hour,” it’s probably simpler if everyone ceases using the phrase entirely.

And that reminds me of what a shame it is that Michael Jackson is dead. I’ve had to mothball the joke, “How do you know it’s bedtime at the Neverland Ranch? When the big hand touches the little hand.”

I’ve been yelling at the radio about this more loudly and more often recently, since the press coverage has increased in The Supremes’ current term.

The issue is whether or not it is constitutionally cool for law enforcement to attach a GPS device to a vehicle without a warrant and then surveil that vehicle indefinitely.

It seems like such a softball question. OF COURSE YOU NEED A FUCKING WARRANT! WHAT IN THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

And this is how my mornings with the radio have gone.

Radio Personality: …argued that no warrant would have been required to follow Antoine Jones using human beings.

Me: 24 HOURS A DAY? FOR A MONTH? HOW MUCH WOULD THAT HAVE COST? AND JUSTIFIED ON WHAT BASIS?

Radio Personality: …arguing that, in instances where law enforcement did not have the requisite probable cause to get a warrant, the GPS surveillance could be used to help obtain that probable cause.

Me: THE SURVEILLANCE IS TO GET THE PROBABLE CAUSE? WHAT THE FUCK? ARE WE LIVING IN RAND MCNALLY, WHERE THEY WEAR HATS ON THEIR FEET AND HAMBURGERS EAT PEOPLE?

Radio Personality: …Dreeben, representing the Department of Justice, cited Katz, the ruling that people have no reasonable expectation to privacy on public roadways.

Me: BUT DUDE, IT’S MY CAR! YOU CAN’T JUST START ATTACHING SHIT TO MY CAR! DO I HAVE NO REASONABLE EXPECTATION THAT YOU WILL NOT ATTACH STUFF TO MY PANTS BECAUSE I BROUGHT THEM WITH ME INTO PUBLIC?

Radio Personality: No.

And so on.

Today, The Supremes ruled unanimously that the installation of GPS devices did, in fact, require a warrant (full opinion, PDF). And they did so in basically the narrowest, most tepid way possible. Justice Scalia, representing the majority, basically said that the act of trespass that occurs in the device’s installation constitutes a “search,” which is why it falls afoul of the Fourth Amendment.

If this ruling were an erection, Scalia would be saying, “This has never happened to me, baby. I guess I shouldn’t have eaten that second piece of pie.”

Justice Alito, in more tumescent counterpoint, wrote:

The court’s reasoning largely disregards what is really important (the use of a GPS for the purpose of long-term tracking) and instead attaches great significance to something that most would view as relatively minor (attaching to the bottom of a car a small, light object that does not interfere in any way with the car’s operation).

And I could not agree with Justice Alito more. While law enforcement attaching stuff to my car pisses me off, the physical surveillance mechanism is the least problematic part of the practice. Alito continues:

“…physical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of surveillance. With increasing regularity, the Government will be capable of duplicating the monitoring undertaken in this case by enlisting factory- or owner-installed vehicle tracking devices or GPS-enabled smartphones.

Per Justice Scalia, though, spectacularly and willfully kicking the can down the road, “The present case does not require us to answer that question.”

While I was yelling at the radio this morning, I heard a piece that NPR did on a non-binding resolution sponsored by House Representative Randy Forbes (Religion-VA), reaffirming “In God We Trust” as our national motto. Setting aside questions about this being the best use of the House’s time, this resolution is important because the last time that the motto was reaffirmed was in the Senate in 2006 (apparently mottos have low self-esteem and require frequent reaffirmation).

Forbes was quoted as stating:

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will have the same opportunity to reaffirm our national motto and directly confront a disturbing trend of inaccuracies and omissions, misunderstandings of church and state, rogue court challenges, and efforts to remove God from the public domain by unelected bureaucrats. As our nation faces challenging times, it is appropriate for Members of Congress and our nation – like our predecessors – to firmly declare our trust in God, believing that it will sustain us for generations to come.

Whew, well that should put the matter to rest.

One disturbing example that Representative Forbes cited was a speech President Obama delivered at the University of Indonesia in which he stated that our national motto was E Pluribus Unum, which set some sphincters a’twitching on Capitol Hill.

What got me cackling was that NPR closed the piece by stating that the national motto may be offensive to those who do not, in fact, trust in God. I’ve got to use that line. “It’s not that I don’t believe in God, I just don’t trust the bastard.”

Victor Garber is one of my favorite actors working. I’ve been following him for years, but (slow on the uptake, true to form) it was only last week when I noticed that he has a comedy ear. Now that I’ve noticed it, I can’t stop noticing it. Several years ago I was stung on the ear by a yellowjacket while mowing the lawn. For days afterward one of my ears was preposterously swollen, but it still registered only an embarassingly distant second to Mssr. Garber’s natural asymmetry. I’m not kidding, I’ve even picked up on the fact that DPs give it special consideration when lighting scenes.

Dude, ear.