Minimally Exceptional

I never really thought of myself as a grammar nazi, but some of the folks I work seem to disagree. Now that I think about it, I guess I do have a lot a gripes about stupid language things. I’m going to bitch about two of them for a minute – these two bug me a lot, and it seems like I hear them more and more lately:

1) ‘I could care less.’ It gets the point across, I guess, but what you’re really looking for here is ‘I couldn’t care less. If you could care less, then you have to somewhat care in the first place. If, on the other hand, you couldn’t care less, then you absolutely, positively, don’t give a shit about whatever it is being discussed.

2) ‘Oh, for God sakes’ I’m not really sure where this one came from. It’s not even a matter of not understanding the words that you’re saying, it’s a matter of not even listening to yourself when you talk. Basically, here you’re using an exclamation made up of words that you don’t know. The right thing to say here is ‘for God’s sake’ or ‘Christ’s sake’ or ‘for fuck’s sake.’ Saying ‘for God sakes’ or ‘for (whatever) sakes’ is just plain stupidity.

The thing that is really irritating to me is that both of these are things that are stupid lazy errors. Just listen to the words that you choose and think about it. Do they make sense? No? Then fix it or find another way to say it. Saying something that doesn’t make sense might just get your point across – and that’s OK – but saying it right might just keep you from looking dumb.