Tam the Feline Grammarian?

I swear, this really happened.

Me: Tam, you can't sit on the keyboard.
Tam blinks at me, but remains sitting, purring.
Me: OK, obviously you *can*. But you mustn't. You shouldn't.
Tam, still purring, gets up and jumps off the desk.

Sometimes he scares me.

Type Tweet: Pet Peeved

Not to mention "its" from "it's" and "to" from "too" and (particularly onerous) "loose" from "lose." I'd also like to require remedial education for those who insist on putting random apostrophes in plural words: "kid's" instead of "kids," for example.

From the Realm of Realllly Bad Puns

The sentences are examples taken from old grammar text books, because the idea of doing so amused me.

Mini-Typecast, Lame Photo Update Just to Update

I'm getting a bunch o' ink samples, mostly Diamine.  It's my first time trying this service of theirs, and I'm pretty excited.

Speaking of inky things, this stuff is pretty awesome for a number of cleaning duties, one of which is getting ink out of the bathroom sink...

However, the lack of the apostrophe in the official name was driving me crazy...so I added one.

Lousy photo of today's fountain pen rotation: Bling (Pelikan M200, Noodler's Air Corp Blue-Black ink), Stealth (Lamy 2000, Noodler's Black), Click (Pilot Vanishing Point, Private Reserve Midnight Blues) and What The...??? (Rotring Core, Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses)

Just another day in the life of a nerd...

NPR ANNOUNCER: During the housing bubble, investors threw money at real estate as if it was Monopoly money. This is an apt metaphor--

ME, INTERRUPTING: That's not a metaphor, you knucklehead. It's a simile!

*change station to "Mozart at Eight" on Classical King FM*

Verbal pitch

I've been on various music-related mailing lists over the years, and every so often, the subject of perfect pitch comes up. The general consensus is that it's not necessarily a fine thing to have perfect pitch (at least according to the strictest definition of the term), because it makes most music impossible to enjoy, as even the slightest deviation from absolute pitch becomes painful.

Sometimes I feel like I've got a mild form of the verbal equivalent of perfect pitch. Irregularities and imprecise speech annoy me, depending on the context. I can watch a movie or TV show or read a book where characters don't speak perfectly - I'm not quite that uptight. But...well..sometimes...

Yesterday, for example, my boss said he was feeling "nauseous", and I just *had* to give a lecture on why that was the wrong word. Nauseous does not mean "nauseated" - or it didn't until people misused it to the point where that definition got added to the dictionary. Strictly speaking, it means "causing nausea or disgust". If you're feeling queasy, you're "nauseated". You aren't "nauseous" unless you're causing other folks nausea; which could, of course, be the case if you insist on detailing your symptoms, I admit.

Signs and labels also annoy me sometimes. I have a few bottles of Bath and Body Works' aromatherapy shower gel stuff. They each have a word describing what they're supposedly for: the Ylang Rose stuff says "Sensuality" on it, for example. Umkay. Anyway. The Mandarin Lime says "Energy." All good so far. Both nouns. But the third bottle is Eucalyptus Spearmint, and it says "Relax". "Relax" isn't a noun. It doesn't fit. It should be "Relaxation." If I just had the one bottle, it wouldn't bother me, but in the series, it bugs me every single morning.

Another bottle from Bath and Body Works says to use a "button sized amount." What does that mean? Are we talking shirt button? Coat button? Elevator button? I can't use the stuff without pondering this imponderable. It's mentally paralyzing. Not a good way to start the day...