Drug

Yes, drug.

What are you thinking when you read that word? Don't tell me, let me guess... marijuana. Cocaine. Meth amphitamines. Herione? How about pills? Hydrocodone? Oxycontin? Something in a the 'pams? Lorazipam, Clomidapam? Possibly lithium?

I know what you weren't thinking. Drug - the past tense of drag.

I bet you didn't know that. Neither did I until I worked at USII and it showed up in a disciplinary report. Ye gods. "So-and-so drug a pallet across the warehouse..." Say what? Yes, that's right. Apparently the past tense taught in school, dragged, is not actually correct. Whoops. How did I miss that?

This was a supervisor.

How does anyone learn such appalling language skills? How does this go on? Shouldn't someone hear this and say something? I managed to not say anything, biting holes in my tongue all the while. It was a physical effort. Not to mention the first time I read the report I had to close my office door so that someone wouldn't walk by and think I needed oxygen!

The fact is that Americans speak and write poorly. It is more common to poor skills in this area than not. And it scares me. Look at how many people who can't write, can't speak properly, who run companies, teach people, get into office. Yikes! Maybe I should not pay attention to it or I should tune it out, but I really can't. I can spend half of a five minute conversation correcting the improperly used words and pronunciations.

I know I can speak. I know I can write. But I see how many cannot. It is disheartening.

Comments

CrystalChick said…
Going back and forth in emails with a few different people I have gotten to know their style. Some are great at telling a story but can't spell, others can't really tell a story but are funny, some use words properly but are boring. To me, if I like a person all that doesn't matter.

You know I use some abbreviations. Okay, alot of them with some girlfriends. On Facebook remember you asked me what BIL was. Brother-in-law. If I'm not in the mood, I don't bother typing some things out. I'm lazy in other areas too. ;)

LOL I use alot, because I really do 'laugh out loud' sometimes at the way a person will say or write something.
And I'm sure I've said things like drug instead of dragged. :(
But otherwise I'm fabulous!!
And so are you! Have a nice weekend.
14 November 2008 at 15:56
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interesting Aftermath a From Season Five of "MasterChef"

Image
Do I agree with this? You will have to read it first and decide for yourself. I had long since made up my mind before finding this article. MasterChef Season 5 Fixed: Courtney Lapresi Won Finale After Getting Preferential Treatment – Former Stripper Favoritism BY  STORMY ELIZABETH  ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 "They say if you can’t take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen, but what if you like it hot? If you’ve been watching  MasterChef this season 5 , you may have noticed that one contestant in particular seems to  be “winning” challenges  when her dishes don’t seem to be quite up to it.  Courtney Lapresi  has been billed as an “aerial dancer” on the show. So what exactly is that, you ask? It’s a fancy word for stripper. You may term what she does as burlesque, but nekked is nekked and she takes off her  clothes  when she dances, so you have to call them as you see them. Plus is it really fair that she’s up for a MasterChef win aft
Read more

A.W.A.D. - 14-Letter Words, 14-Letter Definitions

Back in 1994, when I founded Wordsmith.org on a Pi Day (March 14), I had no idea that one day we'd be celebrating its quadridecennial. Here's what the last 14 years look in numbers: So far we have sent out 3,782 unique words and 297 AWADmail compilations to 640,000 present subscribers in 200 countries, that is more than 1.6 billion pieces of email. Well, this week we're seeing all things 14. We'll feature words that are 14 letters long, and define each of them in 14 letters. acritochromacy (uh-KRIT-o-kro-muh-see) noun Color blindness. [From Greek akritos (undistinguishing) + chroma (color).] tintinnabulate (tin-ti-NAB-yuh-layt) verb intr. To ring; to tinkle. [From Latin tintinnabulum (bell), from tintinnare (to jingle).] tinctumutation (tinkt-myoo-TAY-shuhn) noun Change of colour. [From Latin tinctus (a dyeing) + mutation (changing).] Brobdingnagian (brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn) adjective Of gigantic size. [After Brobdingnag, the fictional region where everything was enormous
Read more

An Interesting Wife Swap...

Image
I'm catching up on our Wife Swap recordings. I'm watching the epiode Burroughs/Padovan-Hickman one that aired on 17 April 2009. The one I watched just before was really quite satisfying - the families both learned a lot and seemed to really take it to heart. This one, however, is back to the familiar mold of putting families that are so totally diametrically opposite families together that they almost can't get along. This is interesting, though, because the Padovan-Hickmans have electricity but don't use it, don't flush often, go for a week without showering and then the whole family uses the same bathwater... I can see where that would be hard, especially for me in that I have very oily skin and hair and would look rather wretched after the next day. But the family themselves are very likable and fun, the father looks more like a kindly grandfather, but really is quite intelligent and pleasant. I would have trouble with the clean thing and I'd miss my iPod
Read more