words have meanings

[Mercy]

I am just going to leave these here...

literal (adjective): taking words in their exact sense without metaphor


decimate (verb): to kill or destroy one in every ten of a group or set

J: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
R: Que?

[CJC]

I literally decimated the ants in my back yard... by stepping on one of them.

I figuratively decimated the ants in my back yard by laying out a line of salt.


Words are fun. You take a bunch of meaningless vocal chord vibrations, shape them with an orifice, and presto! It gains meaning.



Got any other good ones?

[Binx]

Oh, man. "Wherefore" is a personal pet peeve of mine. It means WHY, people!

[Mercy]

Oh, man. "Wherefore" is a personal pet peeve of mine. It means WHY, people!

You get to be my favourite person this week.

[Xyvol]

I’ve been wondering lately if illiteracy is more abundant these days, or just more apparent. The digital age has given many more people access to the internet. No longer do you need to have a computer and know how to use it. Now any kid with a phone can post to Facebook and comment on Youtube videos. Kids are getting smartphones with data plans at ten years old, possibly sooner. Whether they know grammar and spelling or not, they don’t care. Hell, plenty of adults I know don’t care. Then you also have people of other nationalities who are posting English as a second language. Anyone can have a blog, journal, or website where they give their opinions and spell them wrong. Most of what I see is from the internet, although I do occasionally catch it out in the real world as well. Someone prints a sign from the office computer that says “Opens 24 hours.” If it were me I would make sure to proof read anything I put out for public consumption.

Another thing I wonder about is if people consider their “digital appearance.” Our society is very concerned about physical appearance. Not only the clothes that you wear, but hygiene too. Despite the saying, if you look slovenly people are going to get a different impression of you than if you are clean and groomed. With physical appearance missing from the internet, the way others perceive you, your “digital appearance” if you will, is in how you type. Spelling, grammar, capitalization, and caps lock all play a part. Even the best thought out argument is not going to get read if the paragraph doesn’t have any punctuation or capitalization. For me, it makes me think someone is uneducated when they mix up “their” and “there”, and use a word like “websight.”

The final factor, which may be the main one, is pure laziness. Textspeak is running rampant. In a chat room, where the printed conversation is scrolling rapidly, I can understand. Sending a text message, well maybe you were pressed for time. There is just no excuse for it when you sit down at the computer to write an email, or post on a forum. You wouldn’t be doing those things if you had such little time that typing “Y” and “o” would just take too much time. The thing that baffled me most is the girl who would reply to my email by saying she didn’t have time to talk. I would include Facebook too, but as I mentioned before most people are doing that from their phone now and can’t be bothered to type out full words. I have no problem with contractions, they are considered common and acceptable in anything other than formal publications. That’s because society is used to them and accepts them. With younger generations growing up to common uses of our laziness, I can see it’s only a matter of time before they become common place.

[Gleeok]

Does that mean "whyfore" means where?

[Binx]

Um.... no. "Whyfore" is not a word.

It makes sense, when you think of it: Wherefore? Therefore.

[Gleeok]

Um.... no. "Whyfore" is not a word.

It makes sense, when you think of it: Wherefore? Therefore.

I admit I was going fishing a little..and now that you've bitten I can't really think of a good punchline... hmm.. howabout:

I don't trust anything that makes beer taste like furniture polish.

[Binx]

I admit I was going fishing a little..and now that you've bitten I can't really think of a good punchline... hmm.. howabout:

I don't trust anything that makes beer taste like furniture polish.

EEEWWWWWW..... Good beer only please...



YAAYYY!!! I suck all the funny away!

[SUCCESSOR]

No, that means "Wazzup?!"