The mobile phone: my closest friend

Literally. I take him everywhere I go because I feel vulnerable without him. He sleeps beside me, wakes me up, tells me that it’s raining outside. During the day, he sits squarely in my pocket. Perhaps you have a similar friend?

Every now and then I teach him a new skill. He learns it in seconds, kind of like how Trinity in The Matrix learnt how to fly a helicopter. Only, unlike Trinity who’s human and will grow old and stop learning things, this companion of mine will continue to learn until the day his heart stops beating - or battery stops charging. 

But I can’t teach him everything;  this one has a limited knowledge capacity. Nonetheless, he’s sturdy, cheap to run, fast. You might as well say that he’s… no; he isn’t perfect. He gets close.

When I introduce him to friends, I say he’s this super nice internet-connected gizmo who does amazing things. The downside is that he occasionally buzzes and wants me to talk to someone. I’m not fond of those moments. Not fond at all.

We’ll be hanging out, he and I – writing things, reading other things, playing games – when all of a sudden: Vvvvrrrrnnngggggg! The name of a person I probably know interrupts my aloneness, and my friend here sings a song – loudly – to break the silence. It’s a song I’ve grown sick of. In fact, I’ve grown sick of every one of his songs.

I get it, he’s warning me – like your dog yapping to warn you that someone’s on your property. And that someone will keep coming back unless you deal with him now. It’s a universal truth that it’s better to deal with him now. But as that damnable song screeches through the pores of that tinny speaker, I’m less inclined to appease it and more inclined to question why I live in a society that insists on answering - answering doors, answering questions, answering phones - and why I have a problem with it. Actually, why do I keep a device whose fundamental purpose is to make answering stuff easier? Why would I do that to myself?

I’m an introvert; I choose my friends carefully. But this friend – this closest friend – isn’t so good at discriminating. He sings for everyone. Every single one. If only I could live without him.

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"It's not instant enough!"

Snappy and passion-filled, these were the words of a friend speaking on the subject of reheating food in the oven as opposed to the microwave.

The oven, I'd argued, retains the crispiness of a pizza base or the stability of a pie pastry - and we all know that a pie's pastry is make-or-break, literally. I said if we didn't have to contend with time, the oven would win.

But she was quick to remind me that we are always contending with time, and so, whenever we juxtapose the quick-start blitzer with the oven's knobs, fan-force and backlight, most of us will simply give shrug to the latter and declare, "It's not instant enough."

Little did I know then, but she had it right. In another time I was content with waiting for my dial-up internet connection to load my Neopets profile or that Homestar Runner episode, even though the latter's audio would run ahead of the video by dint of, you know, the dial-up. Things like this were far from instant, but they were more than enough.

In another time, there was this thing called 'patience'; and even when it came to technology - even when a web page would load in its stop-motion-style unveiling as each bit by literal bit of content appeared onscreen - I remained content.

Now, jump forward to last week: I did not remain content. There was an internet outage - or rather, an internet hissy fit - and it just wouldn't sit still. I tell you, the web of 2014 was as sporadic as a flickering dim light swinging on a cord in a horror film, and had this fit lasted any longer than it did, I would've had a case of hissy to call my own.

See, I'd been promised broadband with download speeds that made one's face alight. But on that day, during that bout of internet indecision, it was more akin to dial-up, albeit without the electronic scratching noises that many of us can play by ear. This wasn't right, I said. This wasn't instant enough!

Even when the connection appeared to have fixed itself, web pages would load in a jittery slowness. It was like coming early to the airport, expecting it to be empty, and finding an impossibly long queue leaking into the foyer because everyone else had had the same idea. It was the bane of the first world, and I was its unsuspecting victim.

But yet, in this moment of strife was an afterimage of reminiscence. I recalled my old dragon from Neopets - now starving to death from a lack of sausage omelette - and asked him, "At what point did this all start to change?"

Coffee will never be instant enough. Not ever.

Technology is meant to help, not hinder; it's the magic of the modern world; it's there to astound and to surprise us on a planet which grows increasingly destitute of wonder. And indeed, it does astound - once. But following that, it becomes common place - so much so that even wonder itself may soon wither into novelty.

Somehow, over the last two decades, our expectations have become so inflated that they now coincide with basic rights. Our soons have been superimposed onto nows, and our needs and wants have become so interlaced as to remove all difference. The time bracket has become our worst enemy, and technology's best selling point. Wonders are no longer appreciated but expected.

However means through which this change has occurred, it's been slow and insidious, a usurper who for years we never knew was king. And if we are the masters of ourselves, then we have only ourselves to blame. Ironic, isn't it, that in many ways my twelve year-old self was more mature than I am now at twenty-five? A small part of me knows that this isn't how life is meant to work.

We are mammals; we adapt; and we adapt far faster than it does us good. We rip the extraordinary into its constituents, but the re-assemblage thereafter is a chore that takes too long. A web page used to take thirty seconds to load; now, if it asks for more than three, my instinct is to hit refresh repeatedly and with increasing violence, rather than give it the time of day.

You can sit on a seat thirty thousand feet in the air and travel at over 900kph, and that was wondrous, too, once. Now, along with the cramped seating and the lacklustre movies, human flight is an age-worn oven. It's not instant enough.

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Matt defies standardised grammar and teaches a new grammar - part two

If the whole thing about split infinitives wasn't convincing enough that adherence to strict rules can be stupid, here's another:

Which of these sentences is correct?

1. The pack of wolves is hunting the chickens.
2. The pack of wolves are hunting the chickens.

Answer: both. You can decide. The rule is that there is no rule! (But there should be.)

Part two: group nouns are fiddly
What's a group noun?
Words like 'pack' are called group nouns. 'Faculty' is a group noun; 'group' is a group noun. There are thousands of group nouns.

British English tends towards treating group nouns as being plural, and therefore using 'are' in the case above rather than 'is'. Americans favour the opposite. In either dialect, no firm rule has been decided on. While one may be preferred, either is correct.

Personally, I favour logic, and therefore I think that there should be a rule for all cases in which group nouns are used. For the example above, I think Americans have it down pat, but their reasoning (none) is stupid.

Logic begins here.

Like everything in grammar, it's not the exact word choice (is or are) that makes you correct; and it's not really to do with what sounds right, either. Instead, it's what you mean by your word choice - what you're really trying to convey - that determines which word, which rule, you should use. Remember, language is a road, not a destination; so, when you're trying to get somewhere smartly, it's always right to take the smoothest road.

With that said, here is the rule that should exist for the above example:

The phrase 'of wolves' is prepositional; it describes the word 'pack'.
"The pack [of wolves, not potatoes, or fun-size Snickers] is/are hunting the chickens."

Prepositional phrases can be removed without harming the grammatical integrity of the sentence. So, which word would you prefer if we were to remove the prepositional phrase?

"The pack is hunting the chickens," or, "The pack are hunting the chickens?"

An interesting example: "Leonard's family is very big; Leonard's family are very big."
Different meanings entirely, no?

Still unsure about the is/are conundrum? Don't worry; it's less unreasonable than it looks.

Aside from omitting the prepositional phrase 'of wolves', we can also replace the first word of the sentence, 'the', with another, more convenient-for-Matt's-argument, word.

FOR INSTANCE, say we chose to use 'are' rather than 'is'.
"A pack of wolves are hunting the chickens."
"This pack of wolves are hunting the chickens, but that pack are not."
"One pack of wolves are hunting the chickens."

One pack are hunting the chickens.
'One pack are'
ONE, AND ONLY ONE, ARE!

Hmm.

Here's a helpful illustration:

Straight forward, right?

Now, please understand that, while I believe that the 'is' rule applies to this example, it only applies because the intended meaning of the sentence is better conveyed with the word 'is'. The 'is' road is far smoother than the 'are' road for this one.

Now, here are some exceptions that give the 'are' argument, or are-gument, some dignity:

"Leonard's family are real-estate agents," sounds better than, "Leonard's family is real-estate agents."

"The team are conversing amongst themselves," sounds better than, "The team is conversing amongst itself."

But there's a subtle difference between these examples and the one with the wolves. The 'are' works better here because we aren't really talking about the family or the team as a unit; we're talking about the members within the family and the team.

We're really saying: "Leonard's family [members] are real-estate agents," and, "The team [members] are conversing amongst themselves."

So, the rule should be that, when you're talking about members, you should count the number of members to figure out if it's better to use 'is' or 'are', but when you're talking about packs or groups, it's better to count the number of packs or groups instead.

In other words, if you're talking about each wolf within the pack, use 'are', but if you're talking about the pack itself, use 'is'. Therefore, the pack of wolves [regarding the pack itself, as in, "Look at that pack go!"] is hunting the chickens.

Sadly, this isn't the rule. There are no rules. But I guess it doesn't matter too much. After all, we still have common sense, right? I mean, there's no law that says, "Slow down when you see flashing lights ahead," but you'd still be the fool if you didn't.

**********

Part One

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Matt defies standardised grammar and teaches a new grammar - part one

Recently, Al Yankovic (Weird Al) published a song called Word Crimes, which immediately became my favourite song ever, because a) it parodied Robin Thicke's misogynistic Blurred Lines, and b) it promoted good grammar.

Al, in a gesture of poetic irony, took a song that bespoke society's decline in love and respect, turned it on its head and suited it in an armour sturdy enough to take on the almost-as-crucial decline of the English language.

Unfortunately, a meddlesome Third Group of people seemed to notice that Al, in his song, made a grammatical mistake of his own. This group singled out the error over and above all of the critical truths he very humorously conveyed.

What was his error? In one of the last lines, he split an infinitive.

Part One: It's quite all right to split an infinitive

Weird Al's sacrilegious line reads, "Try your best to not drool." Are you cringing yet? Because, according to a rule somewhere, you should be.

What's a split infinitive?
You split an infinitive whenever you slot an adverb between the words 'to' and 'be', or 'to' and 'go', or 'to' and whatever.

The line, "To boldly go where no man has gone before," is a famous example.

What's an adverb?
Adverbs describe verbs or adjectives. 'Run' is a verb; 'run slowly' is a verb plus an adverb. 'Go' is a verb, and 'to go' is also a verb, but it's called an infinitive.

'To boldly go' is a half infinitive, then an adverb, and then another half infinitive. Evidently you're not meant to break infinitives in half (split them).

Personally, I, if at all possible, prefer to soundly reason than to blindly follow.

The commandment that "thou'st an infinitive shall 't be split, else thy head," comes from Latin, from which much of English grammar was derived.

In Latin, splitting an infinitive would render the sentence useless. You couldn't do it and still make sense.

But - and here's where the sound reasoning kicks in - we don't speak Latin.

More sound reasoning:
Language is a road, not a destination, and there's no point having roads if you've got nowhere to drive. It's the meaning that's important, not the density of your silly infinitive. Just look at him! (Above)

My understanding is that language is how we communicate, not what we communicate.

Third Group's counterexample to sound reasoning:
Beyond pretending that English is Latin, in most cases, splitting an infinitive will make your sentence sound awkward. There's normally a better way to write the sentence than to split the infinitive. So, basically, the meaning of your sentence is usually conveyed better with the infinitive left whole.

What this is really saying, though, is that rules exist for a reason. Full stops, for one, separate sentences. Stop signs keep people from crashing. Un-split infinitives, well, they help keep things sounding nice.

The Third Group, however, rant about Weird Al's split infinitive with none of this reasoning in mind. Their argument goes as follows:

"He split an infinitive!"
...
...
...
"Burn him!"
...
...
...

Right. Anyway, in the song in question, Weird Al achieves two important things by splitting an infinitive: humour and rhythm. These things are important because Weird Al is trying to a) be funny, and b) write a song.  Funny things need humour and songs need rhythm. What they don't need are roads with dead ends.

The last three lines of the final chorus, with the emphasised words in bold, read like this:

Go back to pre-school

Get out of the gene pool

Try your best to not drool

A little bit rude, right? That was intentional. The joke wouldn't have been effective had the infinitive not been split and the line read instead, "Try your best not to drool," (preserving the sacred infinitive).

This is because the emphasis on 'not' (rather than 'to') is what communicates the idea that not drooling is an exception to the norm. The only other way that the humour would have remained intact would've been to, I guess, rewrite the entire line and break the rhyme, but that would compromise the rhythm, and in turn the humour... so, actually, no.

Splitting the infinitive made that third line incredibly effective because it achieved exactly what Al had intended.

It should be known: grammar rules work most of the time because, most of the time, following them is the best way to achieve the exact form of communication you intend. For instance, I have followed a heck of a load of grammar rules in writing this blog post.

But the rules do not always help. Take the word 'silence', for example. By itself, 'silence' is just a word; yet, you can find it in many a novel, alone, by itself, acting as an entire sentence. Gasp? Not yet.

The word tells you one thing: that there was silence, but the word being by itself can show you other things, like suspense, tension, fear, and uncertainty. Had the sentence read like a sentence, "There was silence," then the emotions might not have been effectively conveyed.

The emotional value of the sentence is strengthened due to its simplicity (one word); and, if this is what the author intended, then writing "silence" as a sentence was entirely justified.

In saying that, a person should understand a rule before he dares to break it. He should know the rules by heart before he toys with them, otherwise it could very well be his head.

In a way, the Third Group is right. They know that you need a rule book before you can drive, but they're forgetting that no one drives without first having somewhere to go. And for that, you need a brain, too.

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Why an atheist shouldn't take offence when a religious person presents his or her beliefs

Every atheist I know would say that God does not exist. They know what the word 'atheist' means, and they stand by it. If I asked them if God is a fairytale character, they'd probably say yes.

I'm fine with this. I'm all for people making up their minds. I just wish that more people would.

So, God is a fairytale character. This means that he's in the same boat as characters like Pinocchio, Snow White, and, according to Once Upon A Time (and nothing else), Elsa the Snow Queen.

Of course, if God and Pinocchio are interchangeable, then it's fair to say that their values are interchangeable, too. So we could take God's words away from God and attribute them to Pinocchio instead.

Some of Pinocchio's words, values and commands include:
"Love Pinocchio with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."
"Honour your father and mother."
"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with Pinocchio's spirit."
"In the beginning Pinocchio created the heavens and the earth."
"For Pinocchio will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

Ridiculous, right? Pinocchio isn't even real, let alone a real boy. Living by these words, or even letting myself be affected by them, is tantamount to me crafting a wooden puppet, naming it Pinocchio, and deciding that this puppet wrote a bunch of laws by which man should live, all with his stubby little puppet hand that can't even grip.

In fact, I am so certain that Pinocchio hasn't written a single thing in the history of the world (what with not existing), that if someone approached me with a Pinocchio doll perched on his shoulder and said, "My friend Pinocchio says that you're living a sinful life," I would probably laugh. In any case, I wouldn't care. And the reason I wouldn't care would be based on my absolute certainty that Pinocchio does not exist. Pinocchio is a fairytale character. No doubt this man would be judging my beliefs, but I personally wouldn't be offended.

Whenever someone's judgements personally offend me, it's as a result of one of two things: my own doubts or my own insecurities, and the two are not mutually exclusive. I would argue that this cause and effect relationship applies to everyone.

I might feel insecure if I walked into a corporate building in shorts and a tee shirt and found that everyone else is wearing suits and ties. If those in suits and ties stared at me, I would feel even more insecure. I'd feel this way because, while a part of me believes that people shouldn't care about what I look like, another part of me would be believing that I'm out of place, that I don't fit in, that those staring are silently ridiculing, and that I should probably find the nearest exit before someone decides to say something. This same part of me might even take offence at all the staring.

This compiled feeling of judgement would be based on an insecurity in my belief system regarding my image, caused by an overwhelming and opposing belief (however strong) that anyone who enters a building like this one ought to be dressed in smart attire, and anyone who isn't ought to be shunned. A silly belief, I know.

Of course, it wasn't until this moment that I realised my 'who cares what you wear' beliefs weren't as firm as I'd thought. It was hardly the pairs of judging eyes that caused me to take offence so much as the volatility of my self esteem. It turns out that, regarding personal image, I didn't truly believe what I thought I did.

On the other hand, I'm never offended by someone's judgements when I'm certain that I'm right. If someone approached me and told me that I can't spell, I wouldn't be offended because I know that I can spell quite well, and this knowledge would be stronger than their opinion. I might get frustrated if the person persisted with examples that actually proved my point rather than his, but I wouldn't be offended.

I wouldn't be offended if someone told me to sweep my chimney to make way for Santa this Christmas, either. If I prided myself on the dust-ridden state of my chimney, I might feel sore about this man ordering me, without using much tact, to clean it. But I wouldn't feel offended over the fact that my disbelief in Santa was being judged because I would know that my disbelief in Santa is the correct belief to have.

And I wouldn't be offended if someone told me that Pinocchio created the world, Pinocchio loves me, and Pinocchio has a plan for my life. Even if my way of life was being judged, I wouldn't be offended because Pinocchio is a fairytale character.

To many an Atheist, God is also a fairytale character, and yet the mention of his name stirs offence almost anywhere, as if each person has been personally attacked. Strangely, if the name 'God' was substituted with 'Pinocchio', I highly doubt that we'd get the same results.

Someone, please, tell me what the difference is.

To recap:
1. Pinocchio is a fairytale character. I would not be offended if you told me that he was real.
2. God is a fairytale character. An atheist should not be offended if I tell him that he is real.

Like I said, I'm all for people making up their minds, but anyone who takes offence when their beliefs are challenged - anyone who feels insecure when their way of life is called to question - hasn't.

Either God is a fairytale, or he isn't.

If he is, then there's no reason to be offended when a Christian presents his or her beliefs, because those beliefs are a part of the same fairytale. They're fake. They have nothing to do with real-world morality.

So if a man does get offended or is affected in any way, then my guess is that there's an underlying doubt or insecurity regarding this man's disbelief in God. What he wants to believe (what he claims) doesn't line up with what he might actually believe (how he reacts/taking offence). Two beliefs are conflicting, like mine in that corporate building.

Now, I'm not saying that the condemning stares and scowls were morally just. Those people aren't perfect, either. But people will always believe things that you and I don't believe. When someone's belief is strong enough, he lives by it, and he feels the need to share it with others. Sometimes it's out of passion, sometimes out of love, and sometimes to condemn. Whatever the case, his attitude isn't my problem. My problem lies in what I believe and how I choose to react.

I felt insecure in that building because the stares and the scowls made me second guess my 'wear what you want' belief system. I wasn't as secure in those beliefs as I am about, say, my competence at spelling. In order to avoid taking personal offence, I need to make up my mind about the beliefs regarding my image. In the same way, a lot of atheists need to make up their minds about their beliefs regarding fairytale characters.

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Wacky things we get told to believe, for no real reason

Case One

One rainy day during high school, I was sitting inside, eating my lunch when Jeanne, a fellow student, decided to educate me.

She'd obviously noticed that I'd peeled my banana like any normal person would:

But it wasn't good enough for her. She approached me, placed her hands on her hips and declared, "You're supposed to peel it from the other end." By 'other end', she meant this:

"Why?" I asked.
"Because that's how monkeys do it."
I looked around to find my friends nodding in agreement, the way you'd nod in agreement if Gandalf had spoken. Evidently Jeanne was quite wise. But I simply raised my eyebrows. "Are you a monkey?"
"What? No," she replied. I think she was upset, because she took off.

Sure, there could be actual reasons, such as the fact that it requires less effort, to peel a banana from the other end, but "because that's how monkeys do it" isn't, of itself, a reason to do anything. Why would we want to mimic monkeys? Should we speak like monkeys, too? Why not go one step further and build nests instead of houses because, you know, that's how birds do it?


Case Two

I never believed in Santa or the Tooth Fairy, or even the Easter Bunny. I think, during my early childhood, my parents must have said, "They aren't real. Don't listen to anyone," in super stern tones. Not that it would've mattered. Everyone outgrows these beliefs sooner or later.

Strangely, a lot of people never stop believing the myth that the daddy longlegs is the most venomous spider on the planet (and that its fangs are too small to pierce human flesh).

I consider myself quite a gullible person, which is why it surprises me when I think back to that fateful day on which I too was told to believe the myth, and refused. Despite being only eight years old, my undeveloped capacitors for reasoning somehow deciphered that the claim didn't make any sense.

"Its fangs are too short. Well isn't that convenient?"
"Why is an eight-year-old schoolmate telling me this, and not the news, or my dad, or someone who knows stuff?"
"Why are there zero reports of someone with a cut on their foot standing on a daddy longlegs and subsequently dying?"

All of these questions rummaged through my mind, ransacking the furniture and messing up the carpet. But I knew better than to argue with a classmate who placed his Scrabble letters diagonally across the board, and whose facial expression said, "No matter what you say, I know more than you."

Here's some research to debunk the myth forever:

"Supposedly, daddy longlegs possess extremely powerful poison, but their fangs are too short to penetrate human skin. To find out, [Mythbusters'] Jaime and Adam hunted down a host of daddy longlegs and took them to a spider specialist who could milk out their venom. Next, the spider specialist compared the toxicity of daddy longlegs venom to black widow venom. The red-bellied widow won out, busting the myth.
A microscopic measurement of the long-legged spider's fangs proved their miniscule quarter-millimeter length could puncture human skin, taking a double bite out of the daddy longlegs myth."

Case Three

Several years ago, I was having lunch at a café with some mates. I bought a Coke Zero because... I don't know. "I don't want cancer!" I told myself, which is why I don't know. I think I'd never drank Coke Zero before. Anyway, one of these mates (it might have been Jeanne) said, "Eew! You shouldn't drink that."
"Why not?"
"A chemical in the sweetener is used in embalming liquid!"
I think someone changed the subject, because I never got the chance to say, "And water is used in nuclear power plants. Best not drink that, either."

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Why I didn't study at the Auckland University of Technology University

It was late last year when indecision plagued my mind. The days were becoming longer, the air warmer. Summer was coming, and I had no idea what to do with my life! After much indecision and frustration, a plethora of infinite possibilities was hammered down to a much more surmountable two. The options were:

1. A Masters in Creative Writing at AUT

2. An Advanced Diploma in Applied Writing at Northtec

Both were one year courses, both full time. Thing is, I still had to make a decision, which was, like all decisions, hard. So, being the outside-the-box thinker I am, I decided to do something unspeakable. I decided to cheat Fate. I decided… to apply for BOTH!

Naturally, both institutions got back to me with promising information, playing their respective cards, talking themselves up and whatnot. Some things I noted were that AUT requested a portfolio five times longer than that of Northtec, AUT's site was more sophisticated and easier to navigate, and AUT had a far better reputation. Yet, I was swayed towards Northtec for one simple reason.

Turns out AUT wasn't (and still isn't) its full name. It's AUT University! Or, in full, Auckland University of Technology University.

Not wishing to study at a tertiary institution that can't proof-read - or, at least, explain - its own name, I wrote them an email to withdraw my application.*

I get it. They don't want their university confused with, say, an airport. But there's a reason why you don't go to the ATM machine.

So now I'm studying at Northtec, and it's going rather well. I mean, my thesis-type assignment in this course is, wait for it, the novel I'm writing! Woo!

Still, I shake my head. Surely a reputable institution such as AUT University, which offers advanced courses in Creative Writing, would have editors smart enough to note the jarring, mouthful-of-a-name University University they represent. The name hasn't changed, however, so I can only infer that they do not. I think I made the right choice.

------------------------

*This scruple - and, believe me, it was a mammoth of a scruple - was not actually what vanquished my indecision, but that doesn't mean it wasn't flippin' annoying!

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When to use (and not to use) quotation marks

The marks of quotation are perhaps the easiest marks of punctuation to use, yet so often they lead only to destruction. You know what else leads to destruction? Walking on your face.

Compare man walking on his face with man walking on his feet.

Silly, yes? That's because it's easy to walk on your feet, and impossible to walk on your face. For starters, you'd need to have two faces so that your weight can always be on one face while the other takes a step forward. As it happens, we don't possess the required amount of faces, so we'd have to sort of face-hop from place to place. I imagine the process would be rather destructive.

Fortunately it's easy to walk on your feet and not on your face. All you have to remember, when you get up in the morning, is not to walk upside-down.

But there's another reason why we walk on our feet and not on our faces. It makes us look more intelligent. Therefore, walking intelligently is easy. The criteria is as follows:

1. Don’t walk on your face.

You know what else is easy? Using quotation marks! It's like walking, provided that walking had two more rules.

*Only use quotation marks when,

1. quoting someone besides yourself

2. denoting sarcasm

3. writing dialogue

When my brother sent me this image, I was left wondering which of the three rules applied.

1. Forget the backwards quotation marks. Generally, if you're going to quote someone, the done thing is to tag the person whom you're quoting, otherwise you might as well have made it up, which defeats the purpose of having quotation marks. Fortunately no one patented the words, 'Thank you'.

2. If sarcasm was the intention, then the staff member who wrote this sign wasn't wanting to thank me, but to insult me. Yet, as Harvey Norman is a store that tries to sell me things rather than ruin my self esteem, I decided that blurting sarcastic courtesies to potential buyers was counter-productive.

3. Pretty lame dialogue.

The inevitable conclusion was, of course, that the writer either had no idea how to use quotation marks properly, or he/she had no idea how to underline text.

Do not use quotation marks when:

1. You aren't doing anything in the above list. Or, in other words, whenever you're trying to place emphasis on a given word or phrase.

Surrounding a phrase in quote marks in order to denote emphasis is just as helpful as surrounding it in commas, or @ symbols, or these things: ~ , which is to say that they do nothing. Except they don't do nothing. For people who know better, the phrase becomes sarcastic.

If you want to add emphasis to a phrase, underline it, use italics, or write it in bold. You could even try using CAPS, though that generally denotes yelling. The only punctuation mark that adds any form of emphasis is the exclamation point!

The writer of the sign didn't know that, and he/she is one of millions. Sad, isn't it? Who would put ~ thingies around the words 'thank you' to denote emphasis? I sure wouldn't. It's sort of a rule of life for me. Rule #1: Don't walk on my face. Rule #2: Don’t emphasise words with ~ thingies.

------------

Here they are again.

Only use quotation marks when,

1. quoting someone besides yourself

2. denoting sarcasm

3. writing dialogue

*There are some other, rare instances in which quotation marks can be used, but even then they aren't necessary.

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Speaking with robots will be socially awkward

Sometimes I ponder what the future might be like, you know, after I'm dead. I think about the things I'll never get to experience, which you might argue impossible, since I've never experienced them. Either way, it's kinda sad.

Recently I thought of those annoying automated phone operator thingies that force you speak to make conversation with them. They suck, mainly because I never know what to ask for until I'm given the choice. And instead of giving you choices, they simply ask, "What's your enquiry?"

And I reply "I received a letter telling me to-"

And they cut me off, "I don't understand whatever it is you just said," which, of course, defeats their very purpose. So frustrating. But what if this didn't just occur on the phone but everywhere else, too? The future would suck. Take, for instance, the following scenario.

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Deep down, we all know that machines will rule the world one day. And even if not 'rule', then at the very least replace checkout operators.

Self-service checkouts are only the beginning. Supermarket franchises will soon be offered human-like robots to replace checkout staff. They'll be individually groomed (by other robots, who work in factories), so that no two robots look the same. They'll even have nametags, like 'Sue' and 'Hal' - mostly three-letter, one-syllable names to cater to a wider audience; but on occasion you'll meet a 'Maximilian' or a 'Jacqueline'. It's more realistic that way.

Say, for instance, you reach the checkout with your trolley of groceries, and Hal greets you with a wave and a smile, and says, "Hi there, Jesse." (He knows your name from an online passport database).

As this is the future, the world is overpopulated and supermarkets are perpetually aflood with customers. Naturally, quite the queue is lined up behind you: impatient eyes watch as you formulate your generic response to Hal's equally generic, albeit automated, greeting. And in those split seconds between voice prompts, you ask yourself, "How do I do it?"

Not minutes ago, you heard the previous discourse between man and machine, and you shake your heard as your mind replays the scene.

"Hi there, Geoffrey!"

"Hey, Hal."

"How is your day going, Geoffrey?"

"Well, my car broke down on the way to work. But a man pulled over to help out, so I stole his car and ended up making it in time. It was hectic, but I'm here now, so that's good, right?"

"I'm sorry, Geoffrey. I do not understand, 'Well, my car broke down on the way to work. But a man pulled over to help out, so I stole his car and ended up making it in time. It was hectic, but I'm here now, so that's good, right?' Please try a shorter answer, like 'Good, thanks.'"

"Oh, well… it was good."

"Wonderful. Cash or credit, Geoffrey?"

You shudder at the memory of Geoffrey walking off, an abashed expression pasted onto his face. It was so awkward. Everyone was laughing at him, except Hal. Hal doesn't laugh.

Years ago, when you called the tax department, they didn’t ask for verbal responses, only numbers. '5' for general enquiries. It was always general enquiries.

Then businesses got all obnoxious with their tech, forcing people to talk instead of push buttons on the keypad. As if saying 'general enquiries' in a tone that implied the recipient was both foreign and deaf was ever easier than pressing 5. Half the time you'd get a response, "Sorry, was that 'student loans' or 'tax returns'? The answer, of course, was neither. And it certainly wasn't fun if you were in a public space.

Even then those were the good old days. You know, when supermarkets had real humans at checkouts. Now, not only are there less jobs, but you have to contend with robots everywhere you go! They don't even blink, and the ones that do are always on a five-second timer. Sometimes, if you're at the end checkout, you can look down at all the other operators and notice that they all blink in time with each other.

It's not right; the conversations aren't even real! But if you don't greet them back, they stare at you in a perpetual stasis, wide eyes and creepy smiles waiting for your reply.

Hal is no different. As you reminisce on times past, he looks at you with false anticipation on his plastic face, and crane-like hands hover over the conveyor belt, set to move upon your reply. But who wants to talk to a robot and risk looking like a total loser? Who wants to converse with someone who doesn't really converse? It's then that you remember the scarcely advertised 'code' for a free discount.

"Hi," you then reply, all moping and whatnot.

"How was your day, Jesse?"

"Bad."

"Oh!" Hal pauses. You take his creased brow as a sign of pity. "Well, let me offer you a box of Coke Zero for 25% off."

The black box of sugar-free goodness sits atop all other items as you wheel your trolley across the car park. You realise you were only given the discount because you spent over $100 on everything else. Below that, and Hal would've said, "Oh, that's too bad," and nothing more. You wonder if the awkwardness was worth it. I mean, you only get the discount every three months, and it doesn't roll over if you don't use it.

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If we think of the future in this light, it doesn't seem so amazing after all. Of course, though, the deeper meaning underlying whatever it is you just read is the overarching metaphor about the mundane uniformity with which we live our lives. Jokes. I just made that up at the end.

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Words that aren't words. Stop using them.

I have put together a list of eight words that, quite simply, aren't words. If you say/write them, you should probably stop. Some are spoken correctly but spelled horrendously, while others on paper look fine, but when spoken, make the earth cringe.

(Yes, every time you misspeak a word, somewhere, there's an earthquake).

It would be a top ten, but the highest ranking, 'yous' and 'totes', have achieved such infamy that they each have a post of their own. Links are at the bottom. As promised, here are the other eight.

Alot

Alot is not aword. Neither is apony or apoptart. Weird, right?

Aswell

It’s ‘as well’, with a gap for personal space in between.

Alright

You might not get the red underline for this one. Know why? Because it’s so disgraceful you should know better. ‘All right’ - now there’s a breath of fresh air.

Aks

As in, "Aks him for the cash."

It's entirely possible that at some point in my past, I heard this very command and thought, To what culture does this person belong? Surely killing is illegal there too, right? More importantly, why do they always axe their friends? Note to self: do not befriend this person.

Then it hit me. Oh, they meant 'ask'. Yet I folded my arms, brow creased. Note to self: do not befriend this person.

Dieing

Just look at the three vowels in the middle there and tell me that it makes even a smidgen of sense to pronounce that mutation of letters as ‘die-ing’. I’d probably go for ‘deeeng’, like a doorbell with an Australian accent. 

(The correct spelling of the word that describes someone whose health is presently waning to the point of no longer living is ‘dying’).

Ragland

When someone says "Ragland," I think of a meadow filled with old shirts and car engine-stained flannels, and then I say, “Oh, you mean Raglan. Yeah, sure, let's go.”

Some-think, any-think and every-think

A friend who needs better arguments recently uttered that words ending in ‘ing’ are sometimes pronounced with a ‘k’ stuck to the end to help conclude without having to trail off, since the ‘ng’ on its own doesn’t really 'finish'. I remained unconvinced, replying that any word ending with a vowel doesn’t ‘finish’, and therefore we should add a ‘k’ to them, too. (I was being sarcastic. Don't even think about it.)

Also, no one says 'think' when they mean 'thing'.

Some-pink

No one says this, either, except my childhood neighbour friend. He had a permanently-blocked nose and parents who didn't feel the need to correct him. He was trying to say “something”, but his ‘th’ became ‘p’, and then he added the ‘k’ like an epilogue to his verbal diarrhoea. I must have lost my note.

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Totes

http://sanctuaryofsynonyms.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/totes.html

Yous

http://sanctuaryofsynonyms.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/the-yous-epidemic.html

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Yous has babies: Yours and Yours's

It was as I exited the mall that I saw it. A double-sided blackboard detailing the specials at Esquires. Except, it didn't read 'specials', but rather... 'speciels'. Noting the prominence of foreign workers within the café, I simply donned a wry smile and carried on. Not an unkind man, I was even willing to forgive and forget, even turn my slanted smile into a cheerful one, so long as the spelling on other side of the board was no different. Yet, a deep, ugly cringe left no doubt left me unrecognisable after I turned my head. SPESHALS!

Anecdote aside, if you're going to get something wrong, then at the very least be consistent!

Deep down, we all know that the pronoun 'you' can apply to any number of people at a time. This means that 'yous' is unnecessary in every instance it gets said. But if you're going to insist on speaking poorly, then you really ought to add an 's' to every word derived from the word 'you'. For instance, after your daily jog, you might stop by your neighbours' house.

You note their car, both awesome (it can fly) and green. "That's a mint car yous of got," you say between short breaths.

"Thanks," your friendly and intelligent neighbour replies, "but we hardly use it ever since we got our teleportation device. It takes us anywhere in seconds!"
"Oh, mean. Can I see yours teleportation device?"

"Sure can. Come on in."

You step inside. It's the most amazing house you've ever seen, the descriptions irrelevant to the blog post in which you're presently featuring. "Wow, this place is real nice. Is it yours's, or are yous renting?"

Why leave 'yous' to fend for itself? Give it some friends. Since you've already turned 'you' into 'yous' in cases where two or more people are the subjects of 'you', naturally you should also do the following. 

It's consistent, it's logical, and it clearly makes your language sound aeons cooler than your everyday lingo. Look, Gollum is on the right track.

What? So, you're saying that Gollum is not your role model? But... the language and all... I just thought... Pshh, whatever.

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Three pet peeves of mine that seem to be social norms

1. When someone fails to make eye contact despite their job in customer service

Some stores are better than others, but, every now and then, I approach the counter of a shop, and the man or woman at the checkout fails to look at me once, especially if there's a queue. A few days ago I bought some CDs from the Warehouse. When I took them to the counter, the woman there retrieved them to scan and mumbled something like, "Hi there." I returned the greeting, while thinking, I hope she was talking to me. She wasn't looking at me, but those CDs sure as hell don't talk back. Then she said "Eftpos?" while looking at the table with weary eyes.

I was thinking, retard?, but found myself saying, "Yes," to her hair-covered scalp, since her head was so low that I would've had to squat to see her face.

Finally, with as much energy in her voice as there was visibility of her eyes, she said, "Have a nice day." I looked at the time. It was 5:30pm.

2. When someone insists on texting during a person-to-person conversation

Why does almost everyone drop everything to reply to a text message? I'll be talking to someone when suddenly their text tone sounds, they frantically say, "Hang on," and they pause the conversation while they text, as if the text is somehow more important than you, as if it's less rude to keep the person on the other end waiting rather than you, the person they're talking to. Two minutes later, they're back at it, texting away again. Can't you just, you know, not text them?

I know there's a time and a place for it. It could be work-related, or family issue-related; but 90% of the time it's not. It's just another friend they're probably going to 'catch up' with after they're finished with you. Where's the fun in that if they're texting the whole time? Scratch that. Where's the fun in texting? Text typing has to be the most boring thing ever, that is, besides the enduring process of watching someone else finish their text.

3. When someone thinks they're cooler than you despite the fact that they're driving a bus

I was recently driving down a main road when a bus turned in from a side road. It pulled out in front of me, and I had to brake (and almost stop) to avoid hitting it. During these pivotal seconds, I stared at the driver: a middle-aged, sun glasses-wearing individual who simply stared back. I kept staring as he slowly turned and I hastily slowed, until finally we'd gone our separate ways. My thoughts during this brief period were as follows.

Pulling in front of me doesn't make you cool, buddy. You drive a freaking bus, all day, around and around, yet you fail to give way. Every time you do that, you're like a cop being pulled over. Really ironic, and it doesn't make you any less uncool.

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The 'Yous' Epidemic

Childhood was a nightmare. School bullying; cat got run over; broadband was called something like 'dial up'; and there was the unforgettable epidemic of 'yous'. Not 'use', 'yous'. As in, "I'll give yous a gold star if yous'd learn to speak English." Eugh!

Enduring the profanities of those whose pastimes it was to pick on kids richer than them, and for whom I felt sorry because it gave them little time for videogames, was cake next to other blasphemous obscenities with which my poor ears were forced to contend. Among them, 'yous' was the worst. I had my first encounter when I was seven.

"Mrs Black gets angry when we're late! Yous better hurry up."

The word was petrifying. Even when the bell rang, the sound of which normally sets my feet into action, I stood there. The playground emptied; tumbleweed hovered; I felt like I was floating. I blinked moisture into my eyes, but instead the memories came flooding back. His face, adorned with freckles and glasses, refused to fade from my mind. The lisp made his verbal abuse indistinguishable from 'youth'. And as he spoke, saliva sprayed from between his metal-plated teeth. The word emerged like a shark trying to speak while consuming its prey. Violent, traumatising and... unnatural.

Today I still remember the culprit's face; it's been tattooed onto my memory, black and white like a wanted poster's sketch. Except before he could be detained, his sick language infiltrated the minds of every other kiwi in this country. I hear it more than ever; and each time it revives the pain. Battle scars.

Such language isn't even remotely productive. Believe me, I've fought to justify its use: 'you's' as a contraction for 'you is'; oh wait, there's no situation where that works, ever. Or 'yous' for colloquial banter, like 'lols' for old people since, you know, old people say it! But even this doesn't hold water, since 'lol' is but a poor acronym whose lowly status has long been established. 'You', on the other hand, is a perfectly crafted word, like 'Raglan' without the 'D' and 'everything' without that vulgar 'K'! It is clear that 'yous' has no place in anyone's vocabulary.

I know there are others who've seen the light, those of you similarly afflicted by the plagues which haunt the English language. It is you who ask, "What must we do?" And, with great pain, I must say that there is no known cure. But hope is not lost, for I do have one suggestion: one other than, "It's 'you', without the 's'," since that response only turns you into a pedantic nut. My advice is this: mimic and exaggerate their mistakes,

"What are yous up to today?"

"I's gots as physicses labs ats ones, ands Douglases's gots twos tutses froms elevens untils twelves fifties."

With hope they'll realise saying 'yous' makes them sound like they're simultaneously being tasered.

Immediate results are unlikely; but the more we wait, the more the curse spreads. Even those once thought immune are finding the taint to be too much to bear. Ignorance and apathy are pitfalls which we're becoming careless to avoid. Well stand up, I say. For if you're finding yourself in one of these pits, then may my advice be a torch to light your way, or a map if your pit is, in fact, a twisted and abysmal cave crawling with 'yous'-spreaders. 

If it is, then we may already be too late.

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'Fun Size' chocolate, with added moral

Somewhere along the way, I seem to have overlooked something. I realise that language changes. 'Thus' and 'hence' are used interchangeably; 'whom' is pretty much a goner; and 'gotten', I'm still getting used to gotten. It makes me think of mutated cotton. But I'll get there. 

What I don't get - what I'll never get - is something far graver than any of the aforementioned tweaks to the English language. It quite frankly contradicts the very thing it aims to promote. Still wondering? Then let me ask you, at which point did 'fun' become synonymous with 'MINISCULE'?

Some things can be small and fun: Gameboys, cell phones, iPods, vegetables. In fact, vegetables so small they're invisible are the most fun. But chocolate -- chocolate is never fun when chocolate is small. Better word associations for a lack, or shortage, of chocolate, include: taunting, tormenting, torturous, dire, deprive-yourself, I'd-rather-die, and so on.

No man even closely associates any of these words with 'fun', unless they're a masochist. And even if they are, leaving one's taste buds pleading after a nibble of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate is never, ever fun.

So, why do we have this?

The bit in the yellow.

Let's hope they don't release a SUPER FUN size.

Yes, you may get twelve in a pack, but there's only ever enough for one each. Don't try to argue. And one 'fun size' Snickers is like one measly bite of pizza, after which you're forced to endure the mouth-watering aroma of pepperoni and cheese and whatnot without so much as another taste.

You see, I like to down my Snickers in one no-mess mouthful, but other people nibble away at the corners like it's secretly disgusting but they're trying to be polite. Still others save theirs for later. To that group I always think, "Why didn't I do that?"

But when I try to do that, it never works: the chocolate must be eaten. And so it always is that I'm left chocolate-less, contending with the delicate munchings of those around me whose secret motives, I'm certain, are to torment me. Fun.

It was fun while it lasted, sure. But when it's gone, all you can do is sit and watch as someone else does a better job with their Snickers (an atrocious metaphor for time and resources). Regretful, wasted, depressed - these are the only emotions you feel now, and they're never fun. Wasting what time you have today could mean it'll all be over by tomorrow.

Remember, "the consequences of today are determined by the actions of the past. To change your future, alter your decisions today." (I made that up, then added quote marks to make it official.)

In life, we're told to lower our expectations and settle. Well, you know what? It's time to take a stand. Say NO, that's not fun-sized, that's crap-sized! I deserve more!

And other meaningful things.

Now go buy loads of chocolate! And avoid the I'd-rather-die size!

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Why the phrase "Like if you agree" is ridiculous

There comes a time in all of our lives when we're bombarded with an obstacle that serves little to no purpose and only manages to induce a level of frustration those on a tight schedule don't have the time to overcome. These include, but are not limited to, pedestrian crossings beside traffic islands; excessive use of road cones around something like a decent-sized shard of glass; and single trees situated in the middle of parking lots, rendering the forward-out car movement both impossible and hazardous.

However, the most terrible man-made catastrophe is also the most recent, namely, in-your-face captions that assume people are idiots, but tell them nothing they didn't already know. The battered, beaten and torn-from-its-limbs-before-being-burned phrase, "Like if you agree".

There's a reason why no one adds this line to the end of their status updates. It's the same reason why a drink bottle doesn't have "drink if you're thirsty" written on its side, or why a pizza doesn't have "edible" scribbled all over it (in sauce).

Anyone who's anyone knows what it means to like something; and of those people, everyone knows what it means to like something on Facebook! Which therefore makes the phrase 'like if you agree' redundant in all circumstances. Yet, it's used as the caption for so many photos and quotes, predominantly on Facebook!

Whenever I come across this phrase, I think to myself, "As opposed to what?" or "Are there people so stupid they have to be told to like something?" or "You could reword that to, 'agree if you agree', since people generally like things they agree with. And you know how stupid it would sound then? Super stupid!"

Of course, such thoughts do nothing to better the community. Naturally, the activist in me leaps to the stage and makes its mark by not liking the post even if I agree with it simply because it has that rotten caption stuck to it like a cancerous growth. I know it's not much, but if we all did it, maybe it'd go away.

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