Saturday, April 18, 2009

Good morning.

I would like to be relaxed, and easygoing.

So I was watching television yesterday, and an ad for a comedian kept coming on. In it he misused the term irony, but he misused it more completely than possibly anyone ever has. I eventually had to turn off the television.
"I find it ironic that the name of the product I use to protect my couch should I happen to spill my drink on it is actually called scotch guard."

I FIND IT IRONIC THAT THE UNIVERSITY I ATTEND IN THE CALIFORNIA TOWN OF SANTA CRUZ IS CALLED UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ.
I FIND IT IRONIC THAT THE MAT ON THE FLOOR OF MY BATHROOM IS CALLED A BATH MAT.

also I wonder what an aneurysm feels like and what I should do when I am having one.

and okay, it is not just that he said it and did not notice his misuse of the word. Maybe he had stage fright. I don't know. But it was also made into a commercial, which I gather a lot of editing or something goes in to.

Authenticated. That word, if dissected, should almost be synonymous with "falsified". Things cannot made authentic, they just are authentic or they are not.

You know what doesn't bother me very much? Misuse of the word "literal". It really used to, and I have got over it, which makes me hope I will get over the irony thing. Oh, wait, now that I am obsessing I have realized that over use of the word literal does not bother me, such as someone saying they were literally up until 4 am worrying about words. That is wrong, but it is not too problematic. I do get distracted by people saying "literally" to mean "figuratively" but it is an auto-antonym, like "cleave" and that gives me a word and concept to be pleased with. Like "sandglass" or "envelope".

1 comment:

flyingvan said...

The local morning radio show has a daily bit they do---it's a contest called 'Irony, Coincidence, or stupid?' where the host reads off something like, 'Global warming summit cancelled due to snow'. The listener has to figure out (which one the radio guy decided) is correct. I don't always agree with his answer though