"At The End Of The Day..." - like, I mean, you know - ANNOYING!

I may be too easily annoyed but there are a few things (read - thousands) that just bug the hell out of me. People talking on their cell phones while operating a motor vehicle is one. I've even seen a guy on a motorcycle doing that! It's not like riding a motorcycle isn't dangerous enough in and of itself, but to do something like that increases the moron factor by about 9. Somebody put way too much chlorine in their gene pool. But that's not what this gripe session is about. It's about the rampant abuse of the (American) English language which, thanks in large part to Noah Webster, is an abuse of "the King's English".

HACKNEYED PHRASES

Among my personal unfavorites are the improper use of "like", "I mean" and "you know?". When one says "it's like" they are saying that condition A approximates condition B - there are some shared characteristics between the two things. Here's an example of a fairly common misuse of "like" - "I told Pete about it, and he was like 'OMG!'" What characteristic could Pete possibly share with her God... or had he effectively become her God? However, the oft-abused and misused "like" is a relatively recent arrival on the hackneyed phrases scene. The abuse of the word "like" began in the 1980s with the introduction of "Valley-Speak", a highly inflected version of American English as practiced by the young girls (Val-Gals) of the San Fernando Valley area of California, and imitated by all the "cool kids" around the country.

Many people actually begin some sentences with "I mean". I ask you... how can a person clarify or expound upon something they haven't yet said? Say what you mean initially and you can avoid abusing "I mean". This grammatical faux pas has been with us for decades!

Then there's the issue of misusing "you know?"... and we all know people who inject "you know?" into their speech patterns as an interrogatory. If you are speaking in a language that the person you are speaking with understands, and if you avoid the excessive use of jargon, cant or idiom, your chances of engaging in an effective communication are greatly enhanced. You will alleviate the need to finish your sentences with "you know?". This one has been around longer than I have.

Interestingly, the three preceding items are generally only found in verbal communications, and rarely - if ever - in written communications.

The current King of Hackney seems to be the phrase "At the end of the day...". Those six little words have been worked to death over the past several months. Exactly where is the end of the day to which those people (primarily broadcast media talk show hosts and guests) refer? At what point in time has it been reached? Is it when they get off work? Is "the end of the day" at sunset, when it is no longer "day"time, but technically nighttime? Is it when they retire to bed for the evening? Or is it the end of the temporal day at midnight? They are talking about the culmination of something, but there are many other ways to express the concept of an activity which has reached fruition. Here are a few that express exactly the same thought:
"When night falls..."
"At the stroke of midnight..."
"When the chickens come home to roost..."
"As the sun sinks slowly below the western horizon..."
At the same time there are other "tried and true" hackneyed phrases that can be substituted for "At the end of the day...", such as:
"When the fat lady sings... (or the PC version, "When the BBW sings...")
"When all is said and done..."
"When it's all over but the shouting..."
"When there's nothing more to be said..."

I mean, at the end of the day it's like... whatever! We have gotten quite sloppy in our use of the predominant language of the USA. Give us another ten years and we'll have developed a competitor for Esperanto. If you consider yourself to be an adult then speak like an adult, not like some airhead kid.

‘The Way Some People Treat Animals Is Just NOT Acceptable!'

"Abandoned dog’s condition appalls shelter manager"

As the shelter manager for the Rogue Valley Humane Society, Margaret Varner is used to seeing abused animals. She thought she’d pretty much seen it all, but then along came Freedom.

Last Saturday, a couple dropped off the white pit bull mix they said they’d found in a ditch in the Sanitarium Road area near Merlin. The dog was emaciated. Her ribs were sticking out, and she weighed less than 40 pounds. All of her teeth had been filed down to the gum line so that her teeth roots are exposed. She had a few pressure sores where the bones rubbed against the skin and caused sores.

She had also given birth to nine puppies earlier that day. One puppy later died. “The puppies still had umbilical cords attached and were wet,” said Varner. “It just broke my heart. I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about what she had been through. And she is still a love. She just wants to snuggle up to you and be petted.”

Freedom was taken to a veterinarian on Sunday for emergency treatment. Varner estimates that Freedom is between 2 and 4 years old. Without teeth, it’s hard to determine a dog’s age.

Freedom was also full of tapeworms and had to be treated. She will be tested for heartworm later this week. If she has it, the shelter will have to hold off treating her until her puppies are weaned in another six weeks or so. The puppies will soon be dewormed as well, once they are a few days older. The white and brown litter has one female and seven males. “We’re hoping people will call in and give us suggestions for names. We’re trying to keep them all patriotic, though,” she said. Varner believes Freedom’s teeth were filed down to prevent her from attacking other dogs when she was forced to breed. “Her teeth are filed too uniformly to say she was a rock chewer or chewed on her kennel,” she said. “Someone had to do that to her.”

Currently, Freedom is being fed a mixture of boneless-skinless chicken breasts and puppy chow to give her more nutrients for feeding the puppies and to help her safely put on weight.

The Rogue Valley Humane Society has established a fund, Truman’s Fund, to help pay the medical bills of some of the most abused animals that come through its doors. The fund is named after a 5-year-old Great Dane that had been severely neglected and needed serious medical care earlier this year. “We can’t save them all, but we can help out some of them,” Varner said. The shelter manager is also disturbed at the number of pit bull mixes that have been dropped at her door in the last few months.

“In the last week alone, we have had three female pit bull mixes dropped off,” she added. Varner said shelter staff continue to work on educating the community and children about animal abuse, hoping to prevent more cases like Freedom. “The way some people treat animals is just not acceptable,” she said. “Freedom already has so many strikes against her. She’s a pit bull and they get a bad rap,” Varner continued. “She will be a special needs dog because of her teeth. I just wonder how much more this dog has to endure. It is just heartbreaking.”

THE PEOPLE THAT DID THIS TO THAT POOR DOG NEED THE SAME THING DONE TO THEM!