So often our language becomes so bland it feels like it’s been diluted with chicken milk. Or expelled from one’s dupa. It’s enough to make you schmerf. Supposably, with a blurp of inspiration, language can be epicaltastic and embiggen one’s imagination. “Fantabulous!” people will cry as they bow to your prose. Irregardless, one must be careful, or risk embodying obnoxity, which may result in ginormous embarrassment and leave friends flustrated....
A is a word, too. Pity a. A gets no respect. A gets taken for granted. A gets trotted out and used—and often misused—by writers every day, without any thought or consideration. Can you search for a on most websites? No. A, for all its graceful brevity, is deemed unworthy—too short to index. A does not even seem to merit clarity on preferred pronunciation; and when you consider that one way is to pronounce it as “uh,” you begin to realize the cavalier disrespect society has for this first among all words....
I confess, I love language. I love grammar. I enjoy well-written prose that demonstrates creative elegance while still conforming to the rules. Even so, Stephen Fry truly nails it here in a rebuttal to people who are far worse than I am (I think). via Hillary Kelly, The New Republic
Okay, so I have to say something about silly things people say, like “myself.” Joe, Nancy and myself drove to the store. Doesn’t that just sound weird? Yet I year people say crap like this all the time. I think they do it because they’re lost as to whether to say “I” or “me” in a sentence. Of course, it should be: Joe, Nancy and I drove to the store....