Sorry to be a PITA

(Watch for a new Mainly about Boats column every Monday, Wednesday, Friday.)

THIS JUST IN via USPS snailmail:

Dear Sir or Madman:

I write on behalf of the Federal Blogger Police (FBP). UR hereby charged with using language unsuitable for blog. In the past week, we have received 3 separ8 complaints.

For a start, UR accused of always putting in all the correct hyphens and apostrophes. A true blogger has no idea what 2 do with an apostrophe and can’t even pronounce it. And in any case WGARA* for apostrophes anyway?

And where are the smilies, man, the smilies? Just cuz UR a WOG it doesn’t mean you can ignore smilies. Wuzup wid U, dude? Everybody likes a smilie to help them ROTFL.

And then there’s all these big words U use. We gotta give it 2 U str8t — URAPITA with the jawbreakers, man. And Latin, fer gawd’s sake. All that i.e. stuff and etc. stuff. Fugedaboudit willya? Loosen up, OK, cuz otherwise UR blogger license will be revoked 4thwith (if not 5thwith) for masquerading as a blogger when in fact UR a columnist.

URs sincerely,

Ben Touta Shape, Chief Watchdog, U.S. Federal Blogger Patrol



Omigod, Ben, I’m so sorry. I plead guilty. I did use an i.e. the other day. It just slipped out, honest. It was just sitting there, balancing on the edge of my brain while I wrote, and it fell straight into my column — er, blog. But it isn’t rude or anything. Id est (i.e.) is just a short way of saying “that is,” just as viz. is short for namely. That comes from videlicet. You see, Latin was centuries ahead of blogger English with its abbreviations, and the “z” is an old form of shortening. We still use it today in words like oz.

You must have seen oz. in recipes or on your Wheaties box, Ben. Five oz. and 500 calories, right? And you must surely have heard of that famous Judy Garland movie, The Wizard of Ounces. Or was it The Wizard of Australia? I forget.

Never mind. I just wish those complaining bloggers would mind their own business and not bring their complaints to you. If I had my way I’d tell them to blogger off before I set my big bad blogdog on them.

Okay, now IGGP :(, so HAGO and TTFN.

* Click here for translation: http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php

Today’s Thought
One attraction of Latin is that you can immerse yourself in the poems of Horace and Catullus without fretting over how to say, “Have a nice day.”
— Peter Brodie

Boaters’ Rules of Thumb #76
First aid. The basic rule of thumb is: Don’t panic. Make haste slowly.

There are only three situations when really fast action is called for: starting breathing, stopping bleeding, and snakebite. Luckily, snakebite is rare on yachts.

In other cases you’ll have more time than medical knowledge at your disposal, so follow Rule #2: Take first aid to the victim, not vice versa.

Tailpiece
The weaker sex is the stronger sex only because of the weakness of the stronger sex for the weaker sex.