PMS and the Grammar Gazpacho*

What you don't see is the dude on the left then beats the other dude - TO DEATH

Okay, so YES - it IS that time of the month again.  And this time around, I noticed something...  The closer I get to my period, the greater the chance I might lose my mind over grammar/proper usage.    It's like I'm out for... wait for it... and I hope you've got a Band-aid handy... BLOOD.  HAH! 

This week, I nearly had an aneurysm when the word "nauseous" was misused in an otherwise well-written book.  All I could think was - "Does this person not have an editor!?!"  Even if the author doesn't know which word to use, an editor is supposed to catch this sort of shit, aren't they?  Unless the editor doesn't know 'nauseous' and 'nauseated' mean two vastly different things.  In which case the editor should be shot by a firing squad and then drawn and quartered, their body parts jettisoned to the far corners of the world.  Too harsh?  Perhaps if the editor where just beaten into unconsciousness with a copy of The Elements of Style, then fired?

Wired magazine recently had an article about the love of Japanese cutesy cat videos.  http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/08/ff_cats/ 

Musashi the cat, photo Panda Kanno

I am a cat lover.  Nay, that is too tame a title.  I am a cat adorer.   I have three cats.  If I could have a domesticated house cat the size of a tiger - I might possibly reach a state of nirvana. 

After I read the Wired article, I got suckered into watching Maru cat videos http://www.youtube.com/user/mugumogu?feature=watch and laughed myself silly at the antics of this large Scottish Fold beastie jumping in and out of various boxes.  The big box video almost had Rissa and me peeing ourselves. 

I love cute cats, kittens, puppies, virtually any fluffy mammal.  You'd think this would translate into my going nuts for the "I can haz cheezburger?" cat photos.  You would be wrong.  I know that these photos most likely were originally created by people for whom English is not their first language, but I simply cannot get past the poorly phrased, cutesy and incorrectly spelled words in these nauseous  photo/posters.  Plus, what cat do you know would talk like that?  Seriously?  All I want to do is create my own posters saying "NO!  You may not have a cheeseburger!!"  Then I want to drown those cutesy, baby-talking cats/kittens - which horrifies the cat adorer in me, but the proper usage gal in me is more dominant in these situations and will always win in the end.

* Yes, I could have used Gestapo.  It didn't feel right to make a quick alliterative joke with the word.