The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has decided to take their message to Twitter. In a pair of tweets which have garnered some attention, the organization said this: - "Words matter, and as our understanding of social justice evolves, our language evolves along with it. Here's how to remove speciesism from your daily conversations." - "Just as it became unacceptable to use racist, homophobic, or ableist language, phrases that trivialize cruelty to animals will vanish as more people begin to appreciate animals for who they are and start 'bringing home the bagels' instead of the bacon." In addition to that cliché alteration, PETA recommends these: Instead of "Kill two birds with one stone.," say "Feed two birds with one scone." Instead of "Be the guinea pig.," say "Be the test tube." Instead of "Beat a dead horse.," say "Feed a fed horse." Instead of "Take the bul...

Due to the plagiaristic tendencies of the Trump family during the Republican National Convention (RNC), it's quite possible Donald's speech on Thursday night will go a little something like this: "Good evening ladies and germs, Can you hear me now? Good. I have a dream. I wish I was a little bit taller. I wish I was a baller. I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her. I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a six four Impala. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Bros before hos. You better check yo self before you wreck yo self. There is no such thing as a stupid question. To be or not to be - that is the question. Love conquers all. Love and marriage, love and marriage, it's the institute you can't disparage. Third time's a charm. Honesty is the best policy. I like big butts and I cannot lie. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Patience is a virtue. Good things come to those who wait. The only two guarantees in lif...

As regular readers should know by now, while I personally don't care what one's religious beliefs are, I myself am not religious. I'm fascinated by religion, have read about and studied several from around the world, but in the end, there hasn't been one which has convinced me it's more valid than all the others. Given that, I got into a discussion with a rather religious individual over the weekend and, while I know she meant well with her words, they still kind of rubbed me the wrong way. We were discussing health ordeals, and when I informed her I was once riddled with a brain tumor and underwent surgery to remove it, she kept repeating the line, "God's looking out for you" and "God's got plans for you!" I know people mean well when they say such things, yet whenever I hear these lines, an array of questions come to mind, such as: "Does this mean God wasn't looking out for the 3-year-old that was shot and killed the other d...

Moving from Omaha, Nebraska to central Ohio seven years ago prompted me to join the popular social networking site Facebook. It allowed me to keep in touch with old friends, family members of mine around the country, as well as new friends. During work breaks, I'd often times find myself wasting time by playing games on the site, such as Candy Crush, Words With Friends, and Bejeweled Blitz. I was honestly quite hooked on the site for about six years. However, last year at around this time, I suffered what I call FBS (or Facebook Burnout Syndrome). All the Farmville invites started getting old, especially since I've never played the game. Seeing pictures of what people were eating two to three times a day started getting old, sometimes nauseating (especially if it was of the fast-food variety). Lastly, statuses I used to chuckle at as I rolled my eyes ever so slightly seemed to transition to the eye-rolling without the chuckles. This prompted me to all but ignore the site for a ...

I know people mean well when they can't think of anything else to say other than an old cliche they've heard since the time they were a fetus and their mother was listening to a radio show called, Dr. Coach: The Wisdom From An Ex-Football Coach That Became A Shrink . However, as I've mentioned in posts prior, when people tell me, "Everything happens for a reason" or "God has a plan," I then become at a loss for words. I kind of slowly nod my head, as I bite my tongue, and think to myself, "Really? Want to inform me about the reason for the Holocaust, child abuse, poverty? How was it all part of 'God's' plan?" I know people mean well when they say such things, but the phrases still irritate me, because when I hear such comments, to me it comes across as though the person wasn't actually listening to my specific story, that they don't truly know me, and that they didn't genuinely think about what they said before they said...

I kind of had my feelings hurt last night. I know didn't mean anything negative by it and was only trying to help, but when she and I traded stories regarding our love lives/dating interests, while I felt I gave some rather thoughtful insights, she provided me with nothing but a series of cliches. I know people mean well when they go that route, but to me, when someone does that, it tells me that they either don't really know what to say so instead of saying next to nothing in the literal sense, they go this route and in my mind say next to nothing in the figurative, or that they aren't really interested in getting into a long-discussion about matters so they feel the cliches are a good-enough type of band-aid to place over the wound(s). In either case, I just wish a person would be up-front and honest about it and either say, "I really don't know what to tell you" or "I'm really not in the mood to discuss this right now. Can we talk about it some...

I don't mind it sometimes when a person makes a statement, another either misunderstands or rebuts said statement, so the initial speaker says, "Well, I'm just saying that..." and then he or she goes on to elaborate on what they had said to hopefully garner a better understanding. However, it seems as if this "'just sayin'" trend is getting out of control, where a person may be met with a rebuttal of some kind and then he or she will then state, "I'm just sayin'." This can also be the case when they're responding to another's comment and finishing their statement with, "Just sayin'." When taken literally, this is true. They were just saying what they just said. Given that, it's fairly pointless to say "just sayin'." It's not like if someone approaches me while I take my dog out, I respond with, "I'm just walkin'" or when my special lady friend (if I had one) walked in...

When I saw the trailer for Garry Marshall's "Valentine's Day" last year, I had to be rushed to the hospital, as I was suffering from Linda Blair complex and my eyes were stuck in the back of my head from rolling them so far. I could tell from the previews that it was going to be God-awful. I enjoy some romantic comedies, those that include good chemistry between the leads, genuine dialogue, solid acting and direction and a somewhat different twist to the very formulaic plot of the genre. I had a good hunch that "Valentine's Day" wasn't going to include any of those and critics agreed with me. Sadly, the movie made $110.0 million. On the site RottenTomatoes.com, 33 critics were showcased rating the film favorably, while 149 rated it poorly, an 18% favorable rating with an average score of 3.8 out of 10. Some of the headlines for the reviews were as follows: “A perfect date movie: you’ll miss absolutely nothing of merit if you make out in the back...

Some people like to speak in clichés. Others like to speak in metaphors. Certain special people even like to speak in tongues. All of these forms of communicating language to another person are either annoying or frightening on a certain level. That brings me to another type of annoyance with regard to language and that's people who speak in pronouns. It's perfectly alright to begin a story with a person's name, we'll say, Chuck Willard-Foolhardy, and then refer to this individual as "he" in the succeeding sentences, so long as no other character is identified. However, if a new character makes his or her presence known in a story, we can't go back to that pronoun, especially if the other character is also male. If we were to refer to one of them as "he," we may not know which one is being talked about. This brings me to a couple people I know, one in particular, whom basically speaks in pronouns. He or She (this information has yet to be ...

"It's always the last place that you'd think to look." Yeah, no kidding, because once we've found "it," only a demented fool with Alzheimer's would continue to look. Sharon: "Did you find it, honey?" Joe: "Yes, I did! Finally!" Sharon: "What are you doing?" Joe: "I'm still looking for it!"

So many words and phrases can be taken in several different ways. There's the: Literal, figurative, perverse, among other approaches of interpreting words or phrases. Cliché's are very ambiguous, I find. Have you ever known of someone whom only speaks in cliché's? They try sounding intelligent and end up sounding like a walking and talking cliché' whom is without any thoughts or ideas of their own? So, I find it especially humorous to illustrate a cliché’s ambiguity by turning it around unto the individual whom stated it. Here are just a few examples of ambiguous words and phrases that I'm sure we've all read or heard a time or two in our lives. I’ll then utilize the tool known as sarcasm to showcase the ambiguity which resides in all of the following words and phrases. That’s music to my ears - I know, we all have different musical tastes and as the saying goes, "to each their own”. But when I hear the phrase, "That's music to my ears,...