Words! Hooray!

I like words. I love words. I dream in words. I eat words for breakfast. I take words with me to the movies. I lather up, rinse, and repeat - not with words, with shampoo, but believe me, I'm either thinking of words or actually speaking words the whole time. If I could, I would marry words, then fight with words constantly for years and years, and end up going to marital counseling with words, just so we could have a stronger relationship in the end.

It hardly needs to be said, then, that I become weepy and emotionally unbalanced when I have to drive all over town at 1:30 in the morning, and can't find a single Wendy's that is still open and able to help me satisfy my sudden craving for a Baconator. Oh, and also, I become visibly upset and start fondling my Celtic cursing stone when people abuse words.

For the enrichment of all, I take the time to draw attention to a few commonly abused phrases. The purpose, of course, is not to make you, personally, feel bad for possibly having abused these phrases yourself. The purpose is to learn something new and correct old habits, so you can then put on elitist airs and begin making other people feel bad for abusing these phrases. And by "make other people feel bad for abusing the language", I obviously mean, "beat the living trough-muck out of them until they either call the police or promise to stop abusing our beloved mother tongue". Ha ha! Not really! Don't inflict physical harm on anyone after reading this, ok? Just, you know, tell the offenders that they're worse than Hitler, and leave it at that.

It begs the question - If there is no argument being had, and someone says, "well, it really begs the question", chances are pretty good that there is no question-begging going on anywhere in the near vicinity. The phrase means "you have made an assumption that has yet to be proved".

So, for example, if you're arguing with a friend about which movie to see, and he says to you, "Public Enemies is going to be a crappy movie, because Johnny Depp is a terrible actor", you may rightly respond, "that just begs the question". Your friend has assumed as fact, without proof, that Johnny Depp is a terrible actor, and has drawn a conclusion ("the movie will be bad") based on that assumption. He has begged the question. (Note: this does not apply to movies starring Seth Rogan, in which cases it is always safe to say, "This movie is going to blow chunks if only because Seth Rogan [is the star/makes a cameo/was anywhere near the set during filming]")

In most cases, when someone says, "it begs the question", what they mean is that a question has been raised. Example: "I heard Seth Rogan is making a new movie, but he's such a mammoth chewer of scenery, it really begs the question, who is still hiring him to act in movies?" Utterly true statement, but a wretched abuse of the phrase.

It was all for not - This is one of those phrases that gets heard incorrectly first, then misunderstood, then spelled incorrectly in a company-wide memo that is emailed to the entire West Region. However, since the memo was sent by the Division Executive Chair of Directives and Corpulence, everyone in the cube farm assumes the phrase was spelled correctly, and the next thing you know, the error is being perpetuated exponentially by well-meaning pencil-pushers who are trying to sound as smart as they assume their superiors are ("smartness" here being measured in units of Lexus ownership).

"Naught" means "nothing", and so the phrase "it was all for naught" means that it - whatever it is (probably a Seth Rogan movie) - was a waste of time, or did not accomplish anything. Example: "I worked long and hard on that manuscript and spent many sleepless nights, but I never got a book contract, so it was all for naught."

HOWEVER! "Naught" sounds like "not" (especially if you are possessed of that lilting, mellow nasality so common to the Michigan dialect), and so the phrase gets the stuffing kicked out of it when it appears in writing as the rather confusing, "it was all for not". I'm looking right at you, Herr Direktor.

I feel nauseous - Part of me wants to put this one to bed once and for all, but another part of me hopes that it lives on forever, so that I can continue enjoying my own private little joke inside my head. But, hey, he who laughs alone laughs creepily, so I'll let you in on the punchline: to be "nauseated" means to feel sick to your stomach; "nauseous" means causing a feeling of sickness. Thus, that rancid meat pie was nauseous, and after I ate six slices of it, I felt nauseated.

What's the joke? That so many people use the word "nauseous" in reference to themselves, i.e., "I'm nauseous", little realizing that they've just admitted to being a cause of queasiness to others. Sometimes, when someone leans up against me at the bar, reeking of cheap whiskey and stale cigarette smoke, and gurgles the phrase, "I'm so nauseous right now", I chuckle to myself and quietly agree.

Nip it in the butt - Ok, last one. The phrase is "nip it in the bud". Just ask Don Knotts. The "bud" in question refers to the bud of a flowering plant, and to "nip" said plant in the aforementioned "bud" is to stop the flowering process early, preventing it from ever reaching full bloom. The phrase "nip it in the bud" is used to describe an action intended to stop something from making progress. In my experience, any "nipping" that took place near the "butt" area, rather than the "bud" area, tended to lead to making progress rather than stopping it.