Awe! I am bloging about things that drive me nuttttttttts!

Today on my blog I am going to rant about things people do on the internet that would make most of their second grade English teachers cry bitter tears. I have touched on some of it on Facebook already, so if some of this seems repetitive, that is because it is.

Sometimes a word ends in a silent e. For example "Fine." If one wants to extend this word, it will not do to repeat the silent e. Fineeeeeee does not equal Fiiiiiiiiiine. The sound that you want to emphasize should be extended. Also, if the word ends in a consonant that isn't s,n,f,r,l,z,v or m it cannot be extended either. sweetttttttttt is not sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. The multiple t's make it sound more like a machine gun.

There are some words that when putting them in past or present participle form require the person to add an extra consonant. This rule is very important to remember. When you say "I poped my balloon" you are not saying that you made your balloon explode, you are saying that you made it the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Of course this goes both ways. You cannot add a consonant where it doesn't belong. Batman is not the "capped crusader." In fact, he rarely wears hats with his costume.

Lastly (for now), when you find something cute, or want to express sympathy, "awe" is not the correct expression. The dictionary gives the following definition for awe:

"an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc.,produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like."

So unless that picture of a puppy in people clothes inspired fear and respect or finding out your friend had a cold shocked you into the realization of the fragility of life and majesty of the immune system, then you are using the wrong term. What you are looking for is "aw," which is just a noise that people make. Once or twice I have seen the incorrect use of this word combined with the first issue I raised to create "aweeee!" which is just all kinds of wrong. To me it looks as though the person was interrupted in the middle of their thought by an amusement park ride of some sort.

I realize that this blog post will mainly be read by literate individuals, but I hope that someday we can all work together to make the internet a much more intelligent place.