{"id":4587,"date":"2011-03-12T08:44:31","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T15:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=4587"},"modified":"2011-03-12T08:44:31","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T15:44:31","slug":"weekend-miscellany-and-one-small-grammatical-gripe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/12\/weekend-miscellany-and-one-small-grammatical-gripe\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend miscellany (and one small grammatical gripe)"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Eighty-five-year-old sniper <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1363432\/85-year-old-U-S-Army-sniper-veteran-proves-lost-skills-picks-target-1-000-yards.html\" target=\"_blank\">still has it.<\/a>\n<li>Geez, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/markets\/2011\/03\/11\/japanese-rebuilding-efforts-boost\/\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a> seems like the last thing anybody should be thinking about right now.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesmokinggun.com\/buster\/portland\/911-calls\" target=\"_blank\">Dumb criminal of the day.<\/a> He does have a point, though. The lady might be armed. (Tip o&#8217; hat to <a href=\"http:\/\/rationalreview.news-digests.com\/todays-edition\" target=\"_blank\">Rational Review News<\/a>.)\n<li>Once again, <a href=\"http:\/\/thetruthaboutguns.com\/2011\/03\/robert-farago\/ma-global-positioning-system-locators-in-firearms-study-commission-is-hereby-established-for-the-purpose-of-making-an-investigation-and-study-relative-to-the-feasibility-of-placing-global-positionin\/\" target=\"_blank\">Massachusetts proudly leads the way.<\/a> Eejits. (Tip o&#8217; hat to S.)\n<li>Slowly, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/sltrib\/home\/51404825-76\/gold-silver-tender-coins.html.csp\" target=\"_blank\">the states begin to defy<\/a> the Fed&#8217;s funny money. Yeah, this is just a token gesture. But still &#8230;  (Tip o&#8217; hat to MH.)\n<li>This is a token gesture, too. But ya gotta love it. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.humanevents.com\/article.php?id=42226\" target=\"_blank\">ObamaCare waivers.<\/a> For everybody.\n<li>Granted <a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/theoval\/post\/2011\/03\/obama-bullying-is-not-something-we-have-to-accept\/1\" target=\"_blank\">this conference took place before the Japanese earthquake<\/a> but even if the whole world had been quiet and peaceful &#8212; and have you noticed much quiet and peace lately? &#8212; this would still show how juvenile the presidency has become. When Obama was running for office, we might have thought a lot of bad things about him. But did anybody guess his administration would turn out to be so trivial? Oh well, it&#8217;s better than seeking Glory in Empire. But &#8230; oops, we&#8217;re still doing that, too.\n<li>BTW, to anybody wondering, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/BehindTheScenes\/2011\/03\/12\/tidal-surges-near-the-magazine\/\">I can pretty much second what Dave says<\/a> about tsunami effects in his local area. It was less bad here. No dead or missing, and as far inland as I live, no damage. But there were evacuations and brief, minor chaos in nearby areas. Nothing worth mentioning compared to the disasters elsewhere. Still, in this part of the world, too, we know we&#8217;re vulnerable to a really big quake. So it&#8217;s a lesson. Glad to hear that the Duffy\/Tuttle families are well and safe.\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Is it just me? Tell me if it is. But every once in a while, some perfectly respectable word or phrase  will become habitually misused in a way that makes a language-lover&#8217;s skin crawl. For instance, using &#8220;like&#8221; where you mean &#8220;as.&#8221;. Or &#8220;less&#8221; when you mean &#8220;fewer.&#8221; Sometimes the misuse is a popular phenomenon. Sometimes, OTOH, it&#8217;s something the media picks up and suddenly every headline writer or anchorthing is misusing the same term because they imagine it makes them sound more erudite or in the know. <\/p>\n<p>My current grammar gripe is a small thing. But again, it&#8217;s a usage that&#8217;s become ubiquitous in the media. It involves another very common, innocent word: after. Here&#8217;s a recent example of what bugs me: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/culture\/2011\/mar\/11\/antique-rifle-police-charlie-sheen\" target=_blank\">&#8220;[R]ifle found after police raid.&#8221;<\/a> No, people. The rifle wasn&#8217;t found <i>after<\/i> the police raid. It was found <i>during<\/i> it. <\/p>\n<p>Now in this instance you might say I&#8217;m being picky. If you count only the initial onrush as the &#8220;raid&#8221; and all the rest as mere follow-up, then yes, the rifle was found &#8220;after.&#8221; But this &#8220;after&#8221; business has become so universal that we&#8217;re also hearing things like (and these are examples from real news, though I don&#8217;t have the links in front of me): &#8220;Man dies after accident that decapitates him&#8221;; &#8220;Children disappear after father&#8217;s suicide;&#8221; &#8220;Fight turns violent after knife attack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After? Um &#8230; no, I don&#8217;t think so.<\/p>\n<p>But tell me &#8230; is it only me? Am I being as prissy as a Victorian schoolmarm? Or are a bunch of morons really trying to make themselves sound somehow more cool by using the word &#8220;after&#8221; in ways that even the White Queen would find impossible to believe?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eighty-five-year-old sniper still has it. Geez, this seems like the last thing anybody should be thinking about right now. Dumb criminal of the day. He does have a point, though. The lady might be armed. (Tip o&#8217; hat to Rational Review News.) Once again, Massachusetts proudly leads the way. Eejits. (Tip o&#8217; hat to S.) Slowly, the states begin to defy the Fed&#8217;s funny money. Yeah, this is just a token gesture. But still &#8230; (Tip o&#8217; hat to MH.) This is a token gesture, too. But ya gotta love it. ObamaCare waivers. For everybody. Granted this conference took place&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/12\/weekend-miscellany-and-one-small-grammatical-gripe\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Weekend miscellany (and one small grammatical gripe)<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-guns-and-gun-rights","category-miscellaneous","category-money","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}