Watching the news last night, and one of the stories was about a close call with two airplanes. One of the pilots was able to get his plane out of the way and avoided a collision.

My bugaboo was the description used by the news reporter calling it a “ near miss”. Near miss would mean that they weren’t able to miss each other or that they almost missed each other,and instead, collided. He should have said: “close call”, or something else.

I’ve heard this description being used quite a bit lately and it just bugs me.

What are some of the little things that get to you sometimes?

That's a good one. It bugs me too.

It bugs me when people say, "I could care less." Then why mention it?

It bugs me when people say "It bugs me"

i.e.
Caring < zero.

"I could care less" actually means Caring > zero.

I remember once sitting in the baggage claim area of an American airport.

It was hot and sweaty and the conveyor belt refused to budge. A voice came on the intercom system and announced, with apologies for the inconvenience, that we were in the midst of a "power outage."

Suddenly peals of laughter emerged from a corner of the waiting room. I glanced across and saw six or eight stewards and stewardesses in British Airways uniforms. I smiled and averted my eyes.

I'm sure, Sir Tom, you know what I mean.

Clue me in? I understand that it's generally "power cut" in the U.K.

Not that I haven't been subject to this atrocity...

It is udderly ridiculous how much weight in the equation of 'worth-as-a-human-being' is given to women's bosoms.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2023 04:07PM by lousyleper.

Imagine trying to teach English spellings, grammar, and meanings to non-English speakers. That is literally my job. And every day, I have to say, "English is a weird language. There are lots of rules, and lots of rules that are regularly broken."

Today:

Ms. Summer to Student A: Give me all of the common spellings for long /a/.
Student A fails the task. Student B. helps out.
Ms. Summer to Student B: Great job! Now give me all of the common spellings for long /o/ (this is tougher.): Student B fails the task. With guidance, both Students A and B recall the required information.
Ms. Summer: On to long /i/!

It's a miracle that we can ever teach kids to read. lol

ETA: One of my favorite tasks today was explaining the concept of "pie" (long /i/ spelled "ie") to Student B, who has never eaten pie. So I googled pie, and showed both students cherry pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie (the latter elicited frowns.) Student B still had no clue, so I suggested that she ask her mom to buy her some pie at the supermarket. They were both fascinated by the various crusts. Have I mentioned that I enjoy my job? :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2023 07:43PM by summer.

It's an inconsistent and difficult language. I'm very impressed that so many have learned English as a second language so well.

Thanks to the many teachers who have had to explain everything over and over!

My mom was a stickler for speaking properly at home. She said if we use "we done" language at home, it would come out at work and places where it mattered bigly. I try. I still find things I say incorrectly. Audience matters. Knowing the difference matters.

As George Carlin said .... It was a near hit !

I think of it as you did miss (whatever calamity) but you nearly didn't. So you get 'near miss'. I like its quirkiness.

I agree re I could care less. That is the exact opposite of what the person actually means. But if you say it with a good dollop of sarcasm people get your point.

I really hate it when people say creek instead of crick. Sounds uppity. If you are going to be up one without a paddle, only one will do.

Ha ha! Well "creek" does have two e's together, so you know how I'm going to feel about that.

Where I grew up back east, “creek” was the pronunciation. However, various branches of my extended family had two definitions for “dinner”. I never got figured out out which was which, so I just abandoned that term, and referred to lunch and supper.

And it’s soda, not pop. ;)

It's "soda" for me as well. Don't get me started on trying to explain regional dialects to my students. Not too long ago it was pail vs. bucket.

My father in law was cute. He always said sodie pop. We use that at home a lot.

It's definitely soda, Pop.

Just shy of 15.

Haha. Good one! That was a true "near miss".

"Near miss" makes sense to me if I juxtapose it with "missed by a mile".

"Missed by a mile" would be a "far miss". People don't care about a "far miss" very often, but will if their plane lands at the wrong airport.

I agree! Unfortunately there is no end to being bugged like this. For example, a look at a lyric out of the new Disney film *Wish*:


It doesn’t help that the jokes aren’t funny. Or that every scene has the cheap glowing aura of an AI-generated image. Or that the songs have lyrics like this:

So I look up at the stars to guide me
And throw caution to every warning sign
If knowing what it could be is what drives me
Then let me be the first to stand in line

People have tried to tell me that this verse does actually make sense. I’ll go into fits about how the songwriters behind these lines—whose names, incidentally, are Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice—have each produced a slew of Top 40 hits and won various awards, which means that the people who generate our mass culture, the people who are paid a presumably eye-popping amount to write the songs that will be heard by millions upon millions of people, literally don’t know how words work. Not just uninspired—actually illiterate. This has to be some kind of civilisational low point. Surely we have nowhere left to sink after this. But apparently, I’m overreacting. Yes, ‘throw caution to every warning sign’ is a monstrous failed clone of an an ordinary English idiom; still, you know what they mean. And I have to grudgingly admit that yes, I do know what they mean. The next one is trickier. ‘If knowing what it could be is what guides me’—what is this it? Is it caution? Is it the warning sign? Is it the same dummy it you find in phrases like it’s raining? And what is the what that the it could be? These are just words, packed in here like styrofoam to fill the space… I’m told that this also makes a kind of sense. It is the future; this person is driven by their hope for a better future. (In which case, wouldn’t it make far more sense to have ‘how it could be’ instead?) But I absolutely refuse to budge on the last one. ‘Let me be the first to stand in line.’ What line? First to stand in line for what? To change things for the better, apparently. Is there a line for that? Is there a place to queue up? Some bureau of changing things for the better? What on earth are you talking about? And besides—if you’re the first to stand in line, then there is no line. There’s just you! Standing!

—Sam Kriss—
—“A Dreadful Dim Fire—

https://samkriss.substack.com/p/a-dreadful-dim-fire