Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Did Aye Sea That Rite?

I was watching the news this afternoon on our local CBS affiliate, KWTX-TV when they posted the following Burn Ban notice:


Now, either they were in a hurry to get it on the air or .... well, they were not paying any attention.

1st-"limestone" should be capitalized. After all, it is the name of a nearby county-Limestone County.

2nd-"McClennan" is not a county in Texas. perhaps they meant McLennan County.

3rd-I have never heard of "ariel" fireworks. "Lion of God" fireworks may sound good, but I don't think that is what they meant. Again perhaps, AERIAL fireworks is more in order.

Way to go Channel 10!

PS-In their defense Channel 10 is not alone in their....hmmm....eggcorn or just plain misspellings. Witness this by viewing the many other uses found by Google for "Ariel Fireworks".

© 2008 Barry T Horst

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And Now, Something A Little Different

I have often been amused by certain words and terms. I mean sometimes they just don't sound right.

I went to the grocery store the other day and tried to go through the "self-check out" lane and saw a sign on the scanner that said, "OUT OF ORDER".

What did that mean?

Should I have done something else first?

Would it work if somebody brought some "ORDER" to it?

That's along the same line as when someone says. "It's out of whack!

"WHAT???

Out of whack? Why I've never seen any whack. (And if I had, I don't think I'd tell anyone!) I suppose it's too simple to say, "AIN'T WORKIN'!"

But that leads us down another road. "AIN'T" Some people say that "AIN'T" ain't a proper word to use.

Excuse me!!!! Some people say "AIN'T" isn't a proper word to use.

Well for a word that's not proper, it's sure been around for a while. Since 1685 to be exact, more or less.And think of all the people that have used it, besides me. Sojourner Truth gave a speech entitled, "Ain't I A Woman?" Lewis Carroll used "AIN'T" in his "Through The Looking Glass" as did Al Jolsen in the Jazz Singer. The use of the word "AIN'T" even cropped up in the last presidential election when Sarah Palin used it during the vice presidential debate and Barack Obama used it during his speeches on the stump to say, "That ain't right!"

And lest we forget, Bugs Bunny's, "Ain't I a stinker?"

© 2008 Barry T Horst

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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.


Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.