Okay, so I’m going to get this out of my system in one throw. While I have no intention of turning this blog into an Andy Rooney-esque, pedantic rant about word misuse, I nevertheless have bile to purge:

“Disinterested” means “a neutral party.” It’s a legal term and, like many legal terms, it sounds fancy, so those putting on airs seem drawn to it like a Senator to an airport lavatory. “Uninterested” by comparison, means, um, not interested. As in, “I am uninterested in watching the video of your colonoscopy, Bob.”

“Presently” means “in the immediate future,” as in, “Lady Funbody will be down presently, sir. May I take your hat?” It does not mean “now”, as in, “Thank you, but it’s presently covering my erection.”

“Actionable”. Another legal term. It means “affording grounds for legal action.” This one pains me particularly, since it has been assimilated into corporate-speak (meaning that I have to listen to it every day) and twisted to mean “realistic to execute,” as in, “Our strategy to enhance shareholder value has actionable objectives.” If you worked for Enron then it’s applicable. Otherwise, just stop.

“Begging the question”. This term describes a specific logical fallacy (in Latin, petitio principii). Unless you’re using it in that context, just say “inviting the question” instead. I recommend practicing this in front a mirror, reinforced with head slaps, for as long as necessary.

“Imply” versus “infer”. To imply is to suggest indirectly. To infer is to form a conclusion. However, the transposition of these terms is frequently hilarious, so feel free to continue.

“Literally”. Come on. We all know what “literally” means. So when you say, “I was literally slaughtered in that meeting,” I can only infer (see what I did there?) that you are a tease.

To respond preemptively to the useless argument that language evolves, and therefore if the majority of a given population uses a word in a particular way then that usage becomes correct – stop. You fail. Language does and should evolve. We require new words to describe new concepts and things. Trotting out this argument to excuse plain ignorance, however, is pure postmodern laziness, and people who do so should be bred for food.

Literally.

Okay, so this kind of sucks. A fellow named Jeff Deck, founder of the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL), quit his job at MIT and went with his friend Benjamin Herson on a cross-country journey to correct typos on public signage:

What started as a wacky, quixotic adventure, covered by NPR, the Chicago Tribune and others, went South, or, rather, Southwest, in a hurry. On March 28th, Jeff and Benjamin corrected typographical errors on a 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at the Grand Canyon National Park (corrections not depicted):

Christopher A. Smith, a National Park Service agent (so much more respectful than Cactus Fuzz or Tree Pig), stated in an affidavit that investigators discovered that Deck and Herson were responsible via Deck’s own blog, which chronicled their exploits. Deck and Herson pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a year’s probation, during which they are banned from entering national parks, or modifying public signs. They were also ordered to pay $3,035 to repair the sign.

Having a mild obsession with signage myself (previously, previously, previously), I salute Jeff and Benjamin’s philosophy and mission, but I wonder if they feel, in hindsight, that they crossed a line. Jeff’s blog is currently dark, only stating, “Statement on the signage of our National Parks and public lands to come,” but there is still a gallery depicting some of their accomplishments.

Whether or not one has a problem with what they did depends on how one determines the value of a thing. One might argue that the sign in question has intrinsic value as art, whereas a restaurant sign with movable letters does not. The woman who painted the sign was Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect of the Watch Tower that the sign describes.

One could also argue that certain typos make documents unique, such as is the case with the numerous typesetting errors that gave rise to some highly collectible (and amusing) editions of the Bible, or the typos in the United States Constitution.

Either the letter store was all out of apostrophes, or this dry cleaner is attempting the seldom-used past present imperfect subjunctive tense.

Previously.

I promise, this gets funnier.

When one develops a web form, like the MrPikes Contact Form, one chooses the means by which the form data will get from the user’s browser to the program on the web server that *does* things with that data – like sends an email, or writes a record to a database. One’s choices are GET or POST.

The GET method encodes the form data into the URL. If the MrPikes Contact Form used the GET method, the resulting URL would look something like this:

http://www.mrpikes.com/contact.php?name=Max%20Mosley

&email=max.mosley%40fia.com&subject=Stop%20Heckling%20Me
&message=You’re%20hurting%20my%20feelings.
&human=20&submit=Send+Form

You tend to see long, ugly URLs like this on sites that dynamically nail their pages together based on database queries.

The POST method passes the form data to the web server in a way that is invisible to the user, i.e., the values are not encoded in the URL.

Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, but the rule that I always follow is that if a user input the data, always use POST.

This is to prevent URL hacking, which amounts to replacing values in the URL manually, with potentially devastating security implications.

It can also be hilarious.

CNN has a beta program which enables visitors to create t-shirts from headlines, available for purchase. The developers went with GET, meaning that users can hack the URL and make t-shirts that say whatever the hell they like. Since the program is still in beta, you cannot actually order the t-shirts, but that hasn’t stopped Gawker, Fark and numerous other sites from having a field day with the program.

My own contribution:

Shopping for midget porn the other day, I came across an e-commerce site offering “Discrete Shipping”.

A Google search on “Discrete Shipping” (over 63,000 results) suggests the problem is not isolated (but hilarious).

As a committed pedant, I thought I would take this opportunity to explain the difference between “discreet” and “discrete”, and even offer a mnemonic trick for remembering the difference.

Discreet – having or showing discernment or good judgment in conduct and especially in speech (Merriam-Webster Online), as in, “Max Mosley failed to keep his Nazi-themed orgy discreet.”

Discrete – distinct, constituting a separate entity or part (Princeton WordNet), as in, “The five prostitutes that Max Mosley engaged for his Nazi-themed orgy were from five discrete agencies.”

So, taken literally, “discrete shipping” would mean that if I ordered three midget porn DVDs, they would arrive in three separate packages.

I’m glad that I didn’t order jelly beans.

The mnemonic trick is simple. Look at the “e”s in each spelling. Notice how the “e”s in “discrete” are separate, or discrete.

Isn’t learning fun?