Author: SilentBen

Not often silent, but undoubtedly always Ben.

Verbal Abuse (and Nounal)

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A colleague of mine has been using his whiteboard to catalog a number of improperly formed turns of phases.  Several are common mistakes (e.g., moot/mute, tack/tact), but others are legitimate faux pas’s (can you pluralize that?).  Here are five of my favorites:

  1. Hedge Case:  This one I have to admit is my own (edge case being the valid phrase referring to scenarios that would happen very infrequently).  In my defense, I think it makes sense on its own – such rare happenstances make up the periphery of the majority (much like a hedge around the yard).  Maybe not.
  2. Defiantly:  Granted this is a real word and has its place … but not as a substitute for the word definitely.  My suspicion is that the co-worker who often uses this in his emails has been getting screwed by his own spell checker.  I think he is likely typing definately which Outlook decidedly thinks is more similar to the topical misnomer than the intended adverb.
  3. Gambit:  Working in a development department, testing is inevitable.  But not matter how many times it comes up, ‘I’ll run it through the whole gamut of test cases’ is never what seems to come out of people’s mouths.
  4. Raft/Rash of Shit:  To be honest, I don’t even know which of these is right – I’ve heard it both ways and I’ve attempted to research it to declare a clear winner, but to know avail.  I cannot find a reliable source and either argument is an equally supportable.
  5. For All Intensive Purposes:  This also is a phrase that I know I’ve used but have since learned otherwise (in case you were not aware, it should be ‘for all intents and purposes’).  But it is hard not to say it the wrong way – it rolls off the tongue more easily and few people fault you for the error.

Feel free to share your favorite misuses of words or phrases.  And for additional fun, check out this old FedEx commercial (this topic always reminds me of this):

Amusement Parks: A Learning Lesson

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Upon taking the kids to Dutch Wonderland this weekend, I learned a few things about my 2-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter.  Here is a short list:

  1. My son has a limited understanding of (or patience for) lines – if he saw an opportunity to weave his way through the crowd, he would take it.
  2. My daughter has no qualms about assisting in hampering such efforts including but not limited to clotheslining him mid-getaway.
  3. My daughter, despite her patience with such lines, seems to let her excitement to get to the next thing hamper her judgment (such as making sure anyone is actually following her).
  4. Fruit flies have a longer attention span than my son (once he is old enough, he will likely need to be on medication).
  5. No matter how many times she is asked to remain silent, my daughter is incapable of stopping the stream of consciousness that flows freely from her mouth – the only peace of the drive home came when she fell asleep.

In addition to the lessons about my kids above, I also learned the following life lessons:  I need a more reliable clip for my keys.  I should trust my instincts to (a) have my wife bring her keys and to (b) leave mine in the car.  Finally, my house is much easier to break into than it should be.  Luckily, my missing keys are already in the mail, my wife has orders to make several dupes of her keys, and our house’s weak point is already being addressed.  Things to add to a shopping list:  a new key clip, a hide-a-key rock, and possibly leashes.

Virtual Road to Riches

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So one of my bonding activities that I developed as of late with my daughter is video gaming – specifically playing with the Wii (btw, thanks again Mom).  Initially it was all about Mario Party 8 since that was one of the first games we had with it.  But I, frankly, can only handle so much of that game (especially since the taunt feature has been unlocked).  So for my birthday, I got a couple of new games (thanks, Jesse) – Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars.  And loving the genre, my daughter wants to play it with me every day if she can – she will wake me up early on work days to play before I leave and will barter bedtime stories in exchange for another level in the evening before bed.  I try to keep the game-play time within reason, but she is legitimately getting better at playing and as such learning some good eye-hand coordination skills.  So if it is time that the TV would likely be on anyway, I’ll gladly play for a bit rather than vegging out to some show.

Anyway, she and I have managed to work through all 30 levels in Story mode and managed to get a good amount of the minikits and red bricks in Free-play mode (I think we are around 90% complete right now).  Once we get through all of it, we may move on to Lego Star Wars.  But we have discovered some interesting quirks in the game.  For one, we found that there are 5 different extras you can unlock that are score multipliers (scorex2, x4, x6, x8, x10) and it seems you can enable all 5 at the same time thus getting a score multiplier of x3840.  As a result, it has been cake to reach Super-Hero/Super-Villain mode in any levels we hadn’t before.  But also it has led to another discovery – it seems the game has a maximum allowable score of 4 billion studs (the currency of choice within the Lego realms).  So any studs accrued beyond this amount are simply lost in the ether (possibly garnished for Gotham City urban renewal programs?).  Granted, it is a ludicrously high number (though ludicrously easy to reach with all the sore multipliers on) and those studs will never get spent even if I never use the multipliers again.  But it is funny that a cap exists (probably a programmatic limitation).

So my daughter and I now moonlight as Lego billionaires.  It is a complex and lavish lifestyle, but we try not to let it go to our heads.  We try to keep our priorities straight – after all, we still do have a city to save.

Pudding Wars

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You know that you’ve spent too much time fighting to get your kids to eat when you are arguing with them to eat their dessert.  That seems to be the position I found myself last night with my son over a bowl of lemon pudding.  We had made an instant box of it and divvied it up 4 ways evenly.  My daughter, my wife and I ate ours up pretty swiftly (it IS pudding – there isn’t really any chewing and what’s not to like), but my son seemed to eat about half of his and then proceeded to engage in one of his favorite past times – jumping on and dismantling the couch.

I only pushed him on the pudding to get a sense of whether he was even interested in finishing it – not to force it on him (the less sugar the better, really).  But he was too busy bouncing around to pay any attention to the line of questioning.  So I finally put it such that if he doesn’t want the rest, someone else would gladly finish it for him – to which my 5-year-old daughter responds “I’d like to volunteer to be that person.” I swear that not a week goes by that she doesn’t surprise me with some new word or phrase that she has seamlessly integrated into her vocabulary.

Can I Get a Witness?

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The other night at 9:00pm, a pair of Mormons show up on my doorstep.  I had difficulty arguing the lateness since I was in the middle of playing Lego Batman with my daughter, though I managed to slip out of any lengthy conversation by stating that I was about to get the kids to bed (something I legitimately should have been doing).  A part of me secretly imagined what might ensue if a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses had happened upon my porch at the same time.  The following morning during my commute, I imagined myself playing devil’s advocate with them regarding their faith.  But really, who am I to throw stones – they are entitled to their beliefs.  Though I’d like to think that I’m equally entitled to my privacy.  If they return, it will likely be to square off with my better half – after which they won’t be back.  🙂