Faith is Not a Verb

I totally get what people mean when they say that faith is a verb. Faith motivates action; faith without works is dead. No problem. But just because a word describes something that is related to action, that doesn’t make it a verb. “Let’s go faith something today.” “Come on dude, it’s time to faith.” Nope.

And then some people go so far as to say that it’s an action verb. As opposed to what, a helping verb? “I faith going to the store.” “I faith made cookies.”

So while people wiser than I have said that faith is a verb, it’s just not.

Enough with the “an historical” bit

I hate it when I hear things like “an historical moment” said in an American accent. I hate it more when people actually cite those instances as an exception to the “a-an” rule. The reason why you see “an” in front of words starting with “h” is that in British English that “h” is silent. That’s it. If you’re reading something out loud, you can say “an historical” or “an happy” or whatever. I guess. Otherwise, stop it! (And to be honest, I try to read those things with a British accent. “an ‘istorical”. “an ‘appy’'.)

There. I feel better now.

Receipts

It bugs me when I buy something and the cashier asks if I want a copy of the receipt. The thing they give me isn’t a copy of the receipt. It’s the receipt. By definition, a receipt is something the customer receives.

(And yes, I realize that tracking purchases by fishing receipts out of my pocket at the end of the day makes me an old man.)

Question Marks

Question marks do not belong at the end of statements. I can live with it if there's an implied question and you'd naturally do the voice inflection, like "I assume you're coming tonight?" - even though that's technically wrong. But it's totally inexcusable to throw a question mark into a statement just because it's somewhere near a question.

• "Any feedback would be appreciated?"
• "I can't figure out how to do this?"
• "Seems like this should work?"

No.

Reject Words

“Series” is a terrible word. It already sounds like a plural, there's no way to differentiate it from its plural, and trying to make it possessive just makes the matter worse. Same with “species”. “It’s hard to pronounce those species’ names.” Quick – how many species are we talking about? Would “specieses’” be any better?

Terrible.

Pronunciation Annoyances

As a public service announcement (albeit a not-very-useful one), I’m listing the right way to pronounce a few things that people often get wrong.

In Science

• Those sea creatures that look like flowers are Sea Anemones (like the flower) – not “anenomes.” I even heard a lady at the aquarium say this wrong.
• Something pertaining to a nucleus is Nuclear – not “nucular”

In Church

• Daniel’s buddy was called Abed-Nego – not “abendego”
• The early Church headquarters was at Kirtland, Ohio – not “Kirkland” (A common mistake in Washington state, where there really is a Kirkland)
• And yes, it’s “Books of Mormon”, not “Book of Mormons”, although “Copies of the Book of Mormon” sounds even better.

And in video games, there’s a whole other list of issues here.

Today’s Quiz

The phrase “‘Ain’t’ ain’t a word” is inappropriate because (choose one):

A. It is hypocritical

B. It is cliché

C. “Ain’t” is in fact a word

D. The correct grammar would be “’Ain’t’ ain’t no word.”