Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 09, 2011

The root used to be enflame. It’s been spelled wrong for so long that the spellcheck doesn’t like it, but it doesn’t have the confusion element, my archaic way.I could care less, but not much.

Here here! Their are so many for instance’s we could of wrote, enuf to make you’re head asplode. But thats beside’s the point. Its allright to spell things how ever you want cuz what matter’s is whether people understand it, amirite?

Why is my keyboard crying?

Oh man, he used my one big grammar pet peeve in the last panel. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to me.

I use my Merriam-Webster’s more than my Spellcheck. After last nights wonderful victory, spellcheck still doesn’t recognize Sox or Fenway. Recognizes Cubs Fan.

Awful and awesome should swap meanings

Let’s not forget everyone’s favorite eye-opener… expresso!

It’s literally illiterate….

That was brilliant.

See…no. The phrase is sarcastic. “I could care less…nah.” It’s been shortened and you’re supposed to understand the implication that I couldn’t care less.

Text speak has messed up everything dramatically, grammatically ..

That’s hard to refudiate.

I’m glad someone else has the same pet peeve as me (the last panel) – thanks Jef!

Hey, folks are just conversating. Guess the dictionary publishers need business.

Larry, irregardless is one of the top five non-words that I hate.

I understand “I could care less” as elliptical for “As if I could care less”. @HyperShock, see http://www.word-detective.com/050404.html: ‘A story (possibly apocryphal, I must note) is told about Sir Christopher Wren, the brilliant architect who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Following the Great Fire of 1666, Wren was asked to rebuild the devastated cathedral, which he did. Viewing the restoration, Queen Anne is said to have proclaimed it “awful, artificial and amusing.” Rather than repairing to his garret to sulk, Wren was thrilled with the royal review, because at that time “awful” meant “awe-inspiring,” “artificial” meant “clever” or “artistic,” and “amusing” meant roughly “riveting” or “astonishing.”’ @exoticdoc2, I may be even more hidebound than you. I’m still annoyed at ‘impact’ used as a verb, except for wisdom teeth and meteorites. BTW, have you ever read Rex Stout’s ‘Gambit’, where Nero Wolfe expresses his displeasure with Webster’s Third for its inclusion of ‘contact’ as a verb? Still, I have to quibble with your saying that disrespect “isn’t” a verb. Languages are conventions, and conventions change. If changes in usage interfere with clarity (confusing ‘ultimate’ with ‘penultimate’ obliterates a useful distinction) or introduce unnecessary redundancy (‘impact’ is used as just another synonym for ‘affect’ or ‘influence’), then I think one is justified in objecting. But I think if the only alternative to ‘contact’ as a verb is ‘make contact with’, the change is to be welcomed as an economy, especially since the shifting of words between parts of speech has so many precedents in English. In fact, I strongly suspect that there was a time when ‘respect’ was used only as a noun.

My dis-favorite is “high rate of speed.” Speed is distance over time therefore a rate. Might as well be saying “high rate of rate.” I also enjoy negative words without a positive. There is discernment but no ‘cernment.’ If we can have a dispute, can we have a ‘pute?’

And what is the antepenultimate embarrassment?

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less. The question is, which is to be master—that’s all. They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!” — Humpty Dumpty

Others may have a way with words, but I will have MY way with them.

For all intensive purposes I agree with most of the comments presented hear today.

re: “flammable” …. that word was literally created as a result of explosions and fires that were occurring because of ignorance. The prefix “in” having various meanings, you can see how the correct word, “inflammable” let to folks thinking that it meant “not gonna burn” instead of “really able to become inflamed, you fool!” My understanding is that this was not the result of a natural evolution of the language, but a sudden adoption of a new word via governmental edict….

..people get the jest of things now-a-days..LOL ,<3,etc..to get hung up on grammar means that precise language can be twisted to mean other than what it does.Political ads are worst then rap music …what is said is not as important as the context in which it was said.

All of this has left me very disorientated.

Oh, this makes me tired! Let me grab an expresso…

Besides the overuse of the word “like” by adults and teens alike, my biggest peeve is the use of two conditionals in the same sentence: “If I would have known I would not have come,” instead of “If I HAD known….etc.” And even some educated people are using singular verbs with plural nouns: “There is millions of people who….” etc.

I do dearly like Frazz, but reading this installment was like listening to fingernails on a chalk board.

Thanks to Gocomics and the changing password set-up, I’m a day late here, BUT, my personal; pet peeve is the current usage of the phrase “All of a sudden…” More and more people are saying, “All THE sudden…” absolutely wrong and makes me grind my teeth every time.

Parmigiana, no Parmagiana, no parmagana, no… [sigh] Or the one with many variants (I’ve kept a mental list over the years) Multiple choice. Is it… A) To all intents & purposes B) To all extents & purposes C) To all intensive purposes D) To all extensive purposes

The thing about language is that it’s ever-changing. Lots of commonly used “official” words were once slang. Sweat and skyscraper are great examples.If a word is used a certain way long enough, it becomes right. Words like sick, hot, and chilling out are considered slang today, but they could end up becoming official word in the future. The same goes for textlish, although that’s unlickly

I noticed that I made a few typos. They should really let us edit our comments.

Anyone else hear Ms. Finster’s voice from Recess when Ms. Olsen talks?