I’m wondering why some in congress are so vehemently against vouchers and school choice.

They say it’s because they don’t want to drain money from the public school system.

But they send their children to private schools.

I had a nasty thought, but I think there could be some truth in there…

They don’t want vouchers and school choice because then children who would otherwise go to public schools could be going to the very same private schools that they send their children to.

The schools they insulate their children with.

I have a little advice for John McCain.

Don’t announce your choice until the convention. If you must announce sooner than that, wait until after the Democrat Convention when Barack Obama will be forced to announce his choice.

Keep all your options open and take Obama’s choice into account.

Even though all the MSM wants to know your pick now, do not give in to them. They’ll know in a month and there is really no need to know any earlier.

Besides, even though Barack Obama is the presumptive Dem nominee, it ain’t over until the weight challenged, kind and polite woman performs her aria….

Okay, some more peeves:

Rain/Reign

Rain: falls from the sky, usually water, but near a volcano could be fire. The children played outside in the warm, gentle rain. Lyrics: “It’s raining men, hallelujah, it’s raining men, Amen.”

Reign: sovereignty, under the dominion, sway, or influence. England prospered during Queen Elizabeth the First’s reign.

Blog/Post redux

And we’re adding in comments here. Comments are not posts. They are not blogs. Comments are just that, comments. The comments are generally on the post’s topic, or as a response to another commenter.

Some comments are spam and some are from “trolls” and some are completely off topic.

But again: comments are not posts and comments are not blogs.

Affect/Effect

For this I will quote from Garner’s A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (an invaluable reference that should be on every writer’s bookshelf):

In ordinary usage, affect is always a verb; it means “to influence; to have an effect on.” Effect as suggested by its use in that definition, is primarily a noun meaning “result” or “consequence”. To affect something is to have an effect on it. But as a verb, effect means “to bring about; produce.”

Accept/Except

Accept: to receive – “She accepted the offer of a job with ABC Corporation.”

Except: to exclude – “She likes all the flavors of Bertie Bott’s jelly beans except earwax.”

I have seen this misuse in a business letter. The author wanted to accept a contract item, but wrote except instead. That changed the whole tenor of the letter and was, in fact, the opposite of what he intended.

Its/It’s

This one is a little different. It’s easy to confuse them, especially since one is a possessive and the other is a contraction and both usually call for an apostrophe to be used.

The easy way to remember proper usage is to ask this question: Can I substitute “it is” and have the sentence sound right?

The company held its annual summer picnic on the first Saturday in August. It’s usually well attended and a good time is had by all.

irregardless – IS NOT A WORD!

Caring less

Often seen around the web is the phrase “I could care less.” That means that the speaker could, indeed, care less about the subject than he or she does at this moment in time. The correct phrase is “I couldn’t care less” meaning that the speaker could not care any less about the subject than he or she does at this moment in time. The speaker’s “careability” level is as low as it could possibly go.

Any more?

Did you ever play the “who is this baby?” game at work? You know, the one where everyone is supposed to bring in a baby picture and a number or letter is assigned to it and you and your coworkers are supposed to guess which baby is which coworker? There were prizes for the person who got the most correct and the person who nobody could guess. Well, the person below the fold never, ever won the “nobody can guess who I am” prize…

Continue reading →

I got the Happy Flu from James Joyner at Outside the Beltway. If you have a blog and want to see where this goes (and this is the first place you saw it) click on Spread It below and post an entry with your own new code…

There are many peeves that find manifestation amongst the inter-tubes… I have listed only a few here. Please add more in comments and we’ll get them added to the post. (updates below)

Blog  – the web log itself, at the main address. This one is musing-minds.com.

Post (noun) – an entry on the blog. The address for this one is musing-minds.com/2008/07/21/peeves/

Post (verb) – the act of publishing a post on the blog.

There/Their/They’re

There: location. The nearest Starbucks is over there.

Their: belongs to them. Sarah and Jane got their lattes at Starbucks.

They’re: A contraction of they are. They’re getting their lattes at that Starbucks over there.

Sight/Cite/Site

Sight: One of the five senses. Looking at or seeing. The witness could not testify as to the actions of the suspect once the suspect was out of sight.

Cite: to quote by way of example, authority, or proof <cites several noteworthy authors> (Merriam Webster)

Please cite your sources.

Site: a place, can be in either physical space or cyberspace. A work site. A website.

Loose/Lose

Lose: Loss. One loses a game, an election, one’s wallet.

Loose: not contained. Loose change. Someone left the barn door open and the pigs got loose.

Choose/Chose

Choose: make a choice. I choose the red one.

Chose: made a choice, past tense. I chose the purple one.

teh for the

is just annoying…

Venomous Kate says:

Your/You’re

Your: possessive. Your peeves mirror my own.

You’re: a contraction of “you” and “are”. You’re as picky as I am.

So tomorrow’s the big day. We’re going to Comcast for Television and phone in addition to the broadband we already have. We decided to consolidate some bills. We also ordered a TiVo instead of cable DVR. The TiVo we ordered has three times the capacity of the DVR.

Of course we’ve had to clear out our old DirecTV TiVo because we can’t transfer from one to the other. I wrote down everything we had in season passes so I could put them all in the new TiVo as they become available. I also spent a lot of time this weekend figuring out the fall schedule so I could make my plans for TiVoing.

I was unhappy to learn that a few of my favorites from last year won’t be coming back; Moonlight, Shark, Women’s Murder Club, and Journeyman.

There are few new ones that look interesting however; My Own Worst Enemy with Christian Slater looks very good. It’s scheduled for Mondays at 10(9 central) on NBC right after Heroes. Henry and Edward are two very different men. But they’re sharing the same body. And neither one knows it.

On Fridays at 8(7 central) on NBC Crusoe airs. It’s about Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. IMDb says

Based on the novel written in 1719, this is said to be an action-packed period drama set in the 17th century, but with a contemporary take on race relations — and a hero who will bear a resemblance to Angus MacGyver. NBC has committed to 13 episodes.

And Scrubs is continuing on ABC! Season 8. Will we ever learn the Janitor’s real name?

There’s that Angie’s List commercial about Joe the Plumber. The woman says that Joe was doing some work at her house when she wasn’t home and her little papillon had to go out. Poor “Joe patiently paraded her up and down the street sacrificing his time and dignity until her business was done”. I have dogs. It isn’t necessary to “parade” them up and down the street. They’ll go in the yard. – And did he really sacrifice his time? or did he include the time in his labor charges?

The cancer won. Our condolences and prayers are with his family and friends.

He will be missed.

May The Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

The other day Barack Obama said:

Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, they will learn English. You need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.

Why Spanish Mr. Obama? Granted that my area has quite a few Hispanic people. When I took my Little Guy to the bus stop for kindergarten, I couldn’t communicate with most of the other mothers because I don’t speak Spanish and they didn’t speak English.

We also have large populations of immigrants from other countries as well. There are more than 3,000 Indian families in the area, enough that a large Hindu temple was built a year ago. We also have good sized populations of Ukrainian, Russian, and Romanian immigrants.

I once worked with a man who had immigrated from Germany. He proudly became a citizen two years ago. He once said, “What is this press 2 for Spanish? Where is press 3 for German?”

When the Little Guy was being tested prior to entering Kindergarten, we were waiting in line in check in. The woman in front of me spoke with an accent, so the woman from the school district asked if she needed a bilingual aide. I’ll never forget the woman’s response.

We are Romanian. We speak English.

All the bilingual aides provided by the school district speak Spanish. No Romanian.

Our country is vast in size. When I was in Europe, one day I was in five different countries. I started in the Netherlands, and drove into Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, before ending up in Germany.  It can be difficult to be in five different states in one day here.

English is the language of business. I have seen people from different countries speaking English to each other as a common language.

If I were to immigrate to another country, I would be expected to learn the language of that country. So do many immigrants here (such as my German friend and the Romanian mother and others I have worked with from Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Japan, India, and Romania).

I was married the first time in Germany. I had to hire, at my own expense, a state approved translator for the wedding ceremony. The clerk who performed the ceremony spoke English, but the ceremony is in German and we were required to have a translator as we were not fluent in German, although we were able to get along “on the economy” as necessary.

English should be the official language of this country.

The Anchoress has a bit more on what Barack Obama had to say the other day.