Strike
Let’s start with baseball and common sense. Strike means to hit something. When I strike a nail, I hit it. According to baseball, when I strike a nail, it’s a hit; when I miss a nail it’s a strike. This is just plain crazy when it means the opposite of what actually happened. From now on in every day life, we’ll continue to use the word strike to mean hit, but in baseball, if you swing and miss, it will be called an Opposite Status hit or OShit. Three OShits and you are out.
Next
How many times have you had this conversation?
Other person, “You want to take the next right turn.”
You, “This one?”
Other person, “No, the next one.”
It happens all the time with days of the week. If someone says the concert is next Thursday… you might show up a week too soon. From this point on, next will mean the first next one and not the second next one. If for some reason you are stuck with thinking that there is some ethereal space between the first next and what you consider the definition of next, then say next next.
Example:
“I am going to bang the next girl that walks by.”
Girl starts to walk by.
“I mean, I am going to bang the next next girl that walks by.”
Warning/Watch
Let’s say you are on vacation in a different state and when you turn on the radio you hear that there is a tornado watch. Would you shrug and continue on your business or would you grab the radio and run for the basement or move to an interior room or hallway on the lowest floor and get under a sturdy piece of furniture?
To tell you the truth, I still cannot tell the difference between the two. If someone warns me that they are going to punch me in the face, I’d know that the possibility of a punch in the face was possible. If someone said, “Watch as I punch you in the face” I’d assume that the punch was on its way. The storm people obviously don’t have the same punch in the face definitions that I use. To them, watch means, “Conditions are right for a tornado.” Warning mean, “Get the fuck in the basement.” I think that is backwards and confusing. To relieve all this confusion, I suggest we get rid of both words and replace them with the following:
A Maybe- Conditions are right that maybe a tornado will form and kill you.
A Gahhh – Get the fuck in the basement! (Gahhh is the noise you make right before something bad is about to happen and you need to warn someone, but the words can’t form in your mouth and all that comes out is a guttural noise. You’ll also emit this noise when you are a passenger in a car right before a wreck.)
W
I know W is not a word, but at three syllables, it might as well be. You know the person that made up the pronunciation of W was just trying to piss all the other letter namer people off with not just a two syllable letter but a THREE syllable letter. Jerk. From now on, W will be pronounced “ass.” I think we all know why.
Lower case l / the number 1 and zero / capital letter o
Letter and number confusion were never a prob1em in pre-computer days. We11, maybe back when phone numbers combined 1etters and numbers or maybe on 1icense p1ates. 0n websites with passwords and CAPTCHA, it’s sometimes tough to te11 the difference. 0nly with the correct fonts can the difference be seen. My solution? Keep the number one the same, but make the 1ower case “L” with a circ1e around it so that everyone wi11 know it is a 1etter. Like this:
For the zero and capital O, keep the capital O, but put a line right down the middle of the zero so that people can tell the difference between the two. Like this:
Done and done!
Mortgage
Just because I am hopeful and also because I have a interest-only adjustable-rate mortgage with an 0.5% teaser rate that expires in three weeks and moves up to Prime plus +18%, I suggest we change the spelling of mortgage to Lessgage. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to put another string of lights on the Christmas tree that we left up, just in case.
