WillWybrow.com

Please, I’m begging you all, rescue me from the sea of stupidity that I’m drowning in. What am I talking about? Certain phrases or exchanges that I hear all the time that people use without realising they’re using them incorrectly. It’s not even the case that the phrases are complicated enough so that their meaning is obscured. If people just shut up and thought about what they were going to say for once, they’d hopefully come to terms with their own idiocy and take a little step further towards being self-aware.

“I could care less…”

I read this one more than I hear it. It’s an obvious bastardisation of the phrase “couldn’t care less,” meaning you think something is so worthless that there is no way you could possibly care any less about it, implying you care nothing at all. Somewhere along the lines, though, the negation has been dropped, and people exclaim “YEAH I COULD CARE LESS LOL,” intending to show their lack of concern over a subject, but actually giving us very little in the way of new information about their views. Saying you “could care less” means you care some amount about something. The only thing not covered by that statement is the thing you are trying to convey — you don’t give a shit and you’re trying to make that plain to us, but all you are saying is that you give something between a bit and a lot of a shit. It’s not even that you’re saying the opposite to us, it’s saying your answer could be anywhere in the range of “thought about it once briefly” and “the only thing that matters to me” which makes it even more vague than not saying anything at all (because, chances are the phrase is only being used to support other discussion on the subject, from which your opinion could be reasonably inferred).

“Would you mind if…?” “Yeah, go right ahead.”

Another tricky double negative that catches out fools both on the internet and in real life conversations — the old “would you mind if I…?” question, where “mind” means “have a problem with.”

This confuses a lot of people. I guess everyone expects a permission request to take the form of “may I…?” or they want to give a positive answer whenever they feel they are doing a nice thing. People are really stumped by the concept of “no” meaning “yes” that they skip the whole mental inquiry into why that might be and just say whatever they want as the answer to the request, filling in their own meaning of the question while they are at it. If I ask you if you mind sucking my dick and you scream “NO WAY!!!” then you better drop to your knees and pay the penalty for your linguistic ignorance. Serves you right, maybe take a few seconds to reflect on what you’re being asked before you let your thoughts out through your voice box.

“Proper” as an adverb

While I’d like to believe that “proper” used as an adverb instead of “properly” devolved from some kind of misinterpretation of the postpositive use of it to mean “in the strict sense of,” I can’t help but wonder whether it’s just kids being lazy. I’m not actually a fan of that postpositive use of it, but that’s fine because I don’t have to use it (although I did once try it to see what all the fuss was about).

Anyway, the dictionary says it’s acceptable informally, but I say go to hell. Keep it out of my books and out of my ears.

“Your”

It’s been done before and it’ll be done again by people far more eloquent than I, BUT there has been a surge in peer-crafted quizzes being posted all over the world’s* favourite social networking site and being force-fed news that “Freddy McDouchebag has taken the quiz how your going to die! and Freddy will die by getting HIV from a diseased crack-whore. Take the quiz and find out what you’re death will be!!!!” makes me want to hurl up my guts and collapse dead over the keyboard. My face mashing the keys as the blood of my internal organs leaks out of my mouth will type gibberish on the screen that is still more coherent than 90% of the stuff on the internet.

“Cereals”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cereal, as in “breakfast cereal,” is an uncountable noun with no plural form. It’s like “water,” people. Every time I hear the word “cereals” used incorrectly, I seriously consider the idea of ramming a spike down my ear canal and deafening myself. People live with deafness all the time, in fact — it must be nice, never having to hear a council estate single mother, overweight from terrible eating and reeking from poor hygeine and cigarette smoke (which, by the way, she puffs over her three- and four-year-old kids) telling her kids to “wait by the fucking trolley” while she goes and picks up “some cereals.” True story. The worst part about this one is that it’s catching on in shops. Aisle labels in some supermarkets proclaim “cereals” in ten-inch-tall letters on boards hanging from the ceiling. Good work, you fucking traitors, just like you label the “pastas” aisle. Oh wait, no you don’t, because these people don’t eat pasta when there are Pot Noodle instant snacks or frozen processed Bird’s Eye faux-meat and frozen oven chips to have instead. Anybody who misuses “cereals” or allows or encourages others to misuse it? Bunch of cunts is what they are, and they should be culled or at least neutered and put on the sex offenders register for good measure.

*except China