Stewie's Law
Irregardless, all of the sudden a whole 'nother.
1. includes / including
This word identifies a subset of something; however its function is to provide a non-exhaustive list of examples. It implies there are other items in the set. Also, adding “but not limited to” is redundant. If you ever find yourself wanting to provide an exhaustive list of items in a set, just use “are.”
- Days of the week include Mon, Thu, and Sat.
- Days of the week are Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, and Sun.
Generally, the best use of includes is to provide better detail of what is in the set, which provides a standard to determine what items are not in the set. In the legal context, this canon is called ejusdem generis.
- Use of the road is limited to vehicles, which includes automobiles, motorcycles, and commercial motor vehicles.
With these vehicles examples, it is clear the road is not for planes or boats. Also, it is easily defensible it excludes ground vehicles without wheels, like construction equipment or snowmobiles.
2. under / overrated
Useful, but often misused to create strawman arguments before casting subjective opinions into the ocean of general consensus:
- He suffered from a chronic case of pre-emptive consensus disorder. A man, physically incapable of disliking a movie until he had received written permission from strangers, announces, “Does anyone else think The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, and all other movies on IMDb’s Top Movies of All Time are overrated?” TRANSLATION: I need external validation from others when I disagree with the majority. Therefore, I have to hedge my vulnerability to save my pride (which is based on never having an original thought).
Also used in tactical deployments of Cunningham’s Law:
- She was a semantic saboteur. She planted definitions like demolition charges on the support beams of language and mocked victims. She didn’t actually care about taxonomy or definitions. Instead, enjoyment derived from watching categorization systems collapse. She knew exactly where to sever the strut of context so that a simple phrase like “A Pop-Tart is structurally a ravioli” would cause the entire architectural integrity of the culinary arts to pancake into the basement. “It is,” she clichés, “And I am tired of pretending it’s not.”
3. ambiguous adjectives
Overwhelmingly applies to the legal / policy world, but others could use a reminder that their beautiful, perfect, amazing, profound, nobel-prize-un-winning, aged, orange, sleepy language is a bit over-tuned.
- Imagine if you will, for a moment… you own a store. Not just any store, the store. The only one that sells a framed picture of Mel Tormé. There is one pedestal in your small store, and one framed picture of Mel Tormé sits upon it, because it is all you sell, and you are the only seller. Your first customer enters: “May I purchase a small framed picture of Mel Tormé?” You are perplexed. “I only have one framed picture of Mel Tormé, and it is all like the others as they are like it. There is no small. To say otherwise would mean there is another that is not small! And that is impossible because I have the Mel-Tormé-opoly in the pictures-of-people-nicknamed-the-velvet-fog sector.”
I officially despise textual traps like this. They are so formally annoying that it’s almost (allegedly) like when Burt (allegedly) pranked me (allegedly) by sneakily inserting (allegedly) custom autocorrects (allegedly) into my word (allegedly) processor (allegedly). Burt was such a AWESOME DUDE, I’m going to NEVER BE AS AWESOME AS BURT, and when I’m done with him, he’s gonna RULE THE WORLD.
And that’s why I’m the one who WAS THERE… YEAH, IT WAS CALLED THE ‘80S. FORD WAS PRESIDENT, NIXON WAS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, AND F.D.R. WAS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY INTO THE GROUND. I WAS BUMMIN’ IN A HOLE-IN-A-WALL TOWN IN WHAT IS NOW CALLED UTAH. SOME FELLA FROM COLORADO SHOWS UP, STARTS MAKING SO CALLED “IMPROVEMENTS”, RIGHT? BEFORE WE KNEW WHAT HIT US, THE STREETS ARE RUNNING WITH LATTES. IT GOT SO BAD THAT A FELLA THAT LIKED TO, YOU KNOW… SMOKE A LITTLE GRASS, OR DRINK A LITTLE RIPPLE, CROW LIKE A ROOSTER, MAYBE CHALLENGE THE MAYOR’S SON TO A GENTLEMEN’S DUEL, WAS “UNCOUTH, AGAINST GOD.” MORE LIKE BAD REAL ESTATE VALUES. STUMPY HAD TO GO!1
But I will be fine next week because SOMEBODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD’S GONNA ROLL ME; I AIN’T THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED….2
1. and / or
There is no series of things, ever, where and/or is not ambiguous (except when fat-fingering Cassian’s surname). If you ever feel the need for it, break the series into conjunctive and disjunctive sets. For example:
Series Meaning A, B, or both A, B, or AB A, B, and C; or A, B, and D ABC or ABD A and B with C or D ABC or ABD If A, then B and C; if B, then C and D ABC or BCD A, B, and C, otherwise D ABC or D Any combination of A, B, and C [ ], A, B, C, AB, AC, BC, or ABC
2. we’ve always done it that way (and its variations)
“That’s what Cadet Mahoney told me to do!”
“Lt. Harris taught me to do it this way.”
No quicker way to say “I have no idea why.” At best, it’s a weak attempt to avoid saying “I don’t know” or “I’m wrong.” And there is nothing wrong with that; heck, I’m wrong all the time and have huge knowledge gaps.
At worst, it implies lack of critical thinking skills. In this world, there’s not a lot of stuff you can take at face value (especially on the internet). Think for yourself: are immigrants really eating cats and dogs in Ohio?
An entire year of my professional experience was spent re-training people: no, you don’t just do what someone told you without understanding why. Don’t delete information in an eligibility system because it’s throwing errors. You find out why the error occurs. And fix it. There is nothing wrong with asking for help.
When I wasn’t training, I was helping my team send out millions of dollars to reimburse thousands of low-income individuals. We even needed legislative appropriation to get the money. I bet that was an embarrassing conversation between my employer and the legislature.
1. per se
No, you’re not distinguishing the intrinsic nature of something from its extrinsic qualities; you’re simply qualifying a statement. I am willing to bet what you really mean is intrinsically, inherently, essentially, necessarily, technically, strictly, exactly, simply, alone, solely, or something similar. Misuse of per se is negligence per se. In fact, don’t use the adverbial phrase or an adverb in its place… they suck. If you do, I will find you negligent under the theory of res ipsa loquitur because adverbs hurt me.
To use per se correctly, there needs to be something referred to that has intrinsic qualities, and the contrast needs to counter one or more intrinsic qualities of that something; and not be a “truth buffer” by describing how something else is contrasted to that something.
Incorrect use:
- BAD: “I am not the subject matter expert [something] per se; I just have the most experience with the chemistry of guano [something else], because I have watched Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls too many times [truth buffer]. Bumblebee Tuna.”
- Here, the person states they are not “X” because “Y.” Nothing in this statement contrasts an intrinsic quality of subject matter expert; instead, the statement just describes the experience of the person and why they are not a subject matter expert.
- REVISION: “I’m not [exactly, technically, actually] the subject matter expert; I just have the most experience with the chemistry of guano, because I’ve watched Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls too many times. My, my, my… this fruit paste is delicious.”
Correct use:
- GOOD: “It is not an ugly pageant [something] per se, as the men were quite handsome [contrast]; the ugliness [something] resided in the hearts of the judges [why it is a contrast].”
1. offline
Due to a non-linear prioritization of competing work-streams, the preliminary synthesis for this engagement was not finalized; I will initiate a post-session reconciliation for subsequent outreach as to not unnecessarily increase labor costs by including this engagement’s attendees whom are unrelated to such reconciliation.
1. personally, [redundant first-person pronoun]
Personally, for me, I’ve found that the future is just the past but happening later, which is why, from my personal perspective of my thoughts that come from my brain, the only way to get to tomorrow is for me, personally, to wait for today to stop being the present. Personally.
Existential Linguistic Failures
Literal Semantic Drift Imprisonment - Metaphorically Stop Trying to Make “Fetch” Happen.
1. peruse
Just perused Romeo and Juliet. Delightful comedy! Those two crazy kids pretending to be dead to get out of family dinners. Had me in stitches. Shakespeare really understood happy endings.
2. slam / blast / call out
Slam!—da-duh-duh—Let the news be news! Troublesome use, extra double dum, kill the copycat kid act, journalists—mad authors of anguish language polluted, or Onyx hit you in the face.3 So stop using Slam! as content. Or else I’ll borrow Shaq from the Fu-Schnickens and slam that, jam it, and make sure it’s broke—what’s up doc, can we rock?—not being braggadocious, supercalifragelistic, Shaq is alidocious.4
And Blast!, ‘cause as AdRock Slams!, “I’m the master blaster, drinking up the Shasta, my voice sounds sweet ‘cause it has to.”5 And I’ll send Billie Joe after you, ‘cause as he Slams! “To me, it’s having a blast, I’m taking all you down with me…”6
And call out is right out! I hate it like “I hate the rain and sunny weather, and I, I hate beach and mountains too. And I, I don’t like a thing about the city, no, no. And I, I, I, hate everything about you.”7
Nobody cares who critiqued another on social media, we care about substantive events. Keep your gladiatorial aggregation, your nutpicking, your manufactured kinetic churnalism for your two-minute power pose in front of the steamed-up mirror after all the shower argument victories.
3. literally vs. figuratively
It’s literally too late for this complaint. Literally has literally become a contronym for use in hyperbolic intensity. I literally fall out of my chair and roll on the floor laughing when I see literally used for hyperbole in legal arguments.
Notefoots