Why would one say "guesstimate?"

It's not a word! It doesn't mean anything!

All it means is that you were too lazy to decide whether you meant to say "guess" or "estimate." They do mean different things. They are appropriate for different situations.

I suppose there might be an intermediate state between guessing and estimating, but it is not "guesstimating." That is a barbarism.

Stop making stupid words up. Stop being stupidly lazy.

Why are there hypocritical hippies?

There are all kinds of "save the environment" bumper stickers. These are fine with me. They're sanctimonious and irritating, but they're not as bad as some--generally the ones to do with Jesus (either pro- or anti-). If you want to save the environment, that's all right as long as you don't introduce fascistic laws. I'm often in favor of things that reduce waste.

But sometimes these stickers are on the back of SUVs. Now, there are reasons to own SUVs. For instance, you may cross Persia on a weekly basis. You may ski all the time. You may own a horse. You may have to transport something large that requires climate control. These are all good reasons to own a gigantic car.

Still, I don't really understand the urge. Don't try to tell me you think they're nice-looking cars. I'm pretty sure that every make that manufactures an SUV has a much more attractive smaller car (except Jeep and Land Rover, because they don't make smaller cars at all). Of course, if you want an SUV, you are entitled to own one. It's a free country.

But to put a "save the environment" sticker on it? Whom do you think you're kidding? Do you not see the cognitive disjoint? And for the record, buying carbon off-sets is not the same as reducing your carbon footprint. It's like buying indulgences from the Pope; you're still vice-ridden and vile.

Closely analogous to this is the hybrid SUV. Now, yes, clearly a hybrid SUV is cleaner than the alternative. But it's still less fuel-efficient than a ten-year-old sedan. Since fuel efficiency is important to you--you bought a hybrid--you fail at your own game. Unless you actually need an SUV, you are still firmly on the side of the devils.

Now, I hate hippies all the time. But when the hippies spray sanctimony all over me and then turn around and spray pollutants into the air, I get even more hateful. I'd invent the word "hippiecritical," but someone might have already, and quite frankly it makes me a little sick inside.

Why are tiny yappy dogs favored as pets?

What is the point of that dog? Maybe a couple evolutionary stages ago it was an effective ratter, but you've cleverly taken that aspect away by keeping him in a handbag. All he is able to do now is sit there and yap. This is probably not fulfilling, even for an animal with such a tiny brain.

Plus, it makes you look like some kind of Cruella DeVil type. Perhaps the dog is an evil sidekick or henchman, whose purpose is to yap people into submission and possibly, in a tiny frenzy, bite them on the ankles. This is still not useful.

It's clear that a large dog in a small apartment is probably more cruel than a small dog in a small apartment. But small dogs like to run, too, and chase other (smaller) things, and generally not be kept in a handbag to look picturesque. It's really not that much better. Try a goldfish. It has an even smaller brain.

And, finally, man, those things are ugly.

Why don't people understand handouts?

Handouts should have on them key information, such as dates, phone numbers, and definitions. Handy reference items, in case you don't quite catch them during the lecture or address.

What no one should ever, ever do is read off a handout verbatim. If there is that much text on a handout, it is too much. Your audience will zone out, assuming everything you're saying is on a sheet of paper in front of them. Because it is. Because you don't understand how to speak effectively.

Also, you're being rude. You're telling the audience that you don't think they can read. Now, probably if you're this ineffectual what you're saying is stultifyingly dull, so they may not want to read it, but you do not solve the problem by reading it out to them. You merely insult and enrage them.

Never do this, people. I'll come after you.

Why are so many Latin mottoes crapulent?

I start with the Catholic University of America's. It is "Deus lux mea est." This is, obviously, a lame rip-off of Oxford. Now, unlike "Dominus illuminatio mea," which is how Psalm 27 begins, "Deus lux mea est" appears nowhere else that I or Wikipedia can find. So it's made up.

Being made up is not necessarily a bad thing, though it usually is. However, when something is clearly made up by a five-year-old with no natural grasp of language, then we have a problem. Yes, if you do an English to Latin translation of "the Lord is my light," then you might, conceivably, come up with "Deus lux mea est." But you probably wouldn't, and that's definitely not how the psalm comes into Latin, so you're left with a stilted and meaningless Latin motto. Well done.

My new favorite, however, is the Obama campaign's "Vero possumus," which as far as I can tell is not actually a joke. I will translate it here as "Indeed I am a possum," which is close enough for jazz. Again, translating from the English into Latin usually doesn't work very well, because few people have Latin composition skills that are up to snuff. When you translate something that would never appear in Latin into Latin, it looks stupid. This is inevitable. Don't do it. There's enough Latin out there from which you can cherry-pick. Really there is. You don't have to make it up.

Why don't politicians understand about YouTube?

It's true; you have to be quite aged before you can run for any sort of real office. Because of this, you may not be terribly conversant with newfangled technology. Such as, say, bows and arrows. Or, apparently, the internet. The fast and universal availability of information that makes it a dead certainty that, if you fabricate something, you won't get away with it. Not only is the footage or sound bite available, too, but many, many people get a massive kick out of ferreting around in these things.

So, if something would be easily verifiable as, you know, not true, maybe it's a bad idea to say it. Probably your handlers should tell you what to say, and you should stick to it. This sort of thing is why you pay them. As far as I can tell in this current campaign (or dog-and-pony show, it's tough to tell), all these handlers are being paid infinitely too much.

Obviously politicians shouldn't lie. Even when campaigning. But to prevaricate so badly that one can immediately be refuted by any blog junkie in his pyjamas--that is pathetic. These people are trying out for leader of the free world, which comes with a free and caffeinated internet press. It should not be too much to ask that they have a working comprehension of this reality.

Why have we been saddled with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim?

It's just stupid. I don't care if there are good reasons, or reasons that people pretend are good. I don't care if it was held up in court. It's still stupid.

Do we call the New York Giants the "New York Giants of East Rutherford?" No, we don't. Because that would be stupid too. Plus, it's not their fault the Polo Grounds closed. The Dallas Cowboys now play in Irving and will soon play in Arlington. Does anyone get snippy about that?

It's good that they're not the Anaheim Angels, because that would be silly. It would be like the Tennessee Oilers or the LA Lakers, although slightly less so because Anaheim is, after all, close to LA. And I imagine some people don't realize what "Los Angeles" means.

But team names should be short, if possible, and not nonsensical. Parallel examples to the Angels' predicament are likewise ludicrously stupid. So Anaheim is insisting on its rights as the lessor of the stadium. Do they not realize that everyone is laughing at them?

Why do people mix up "rein" and "reign?"

I know I just blogged, but this drives me insane.

"Reins" are the trailing bits of leather attached to the bridle on a horse, and, sometimes, also a closely related verb. "Reign" is what a king does.

You cannot hand over the "reigns." That does not make sense. At a stretch you could perhaps shoehorn it into sense, but in those cases we say that one hands over the throne, or kingship, or any number of other things that are not reigns.

One does not "reign it in." Your horse may make you feel like a king but you are not one. Instead, you "rein it in." As in, you use the reins to slow or calm your horse, by the pressure of the bit on his mouth. This may be literal or metaphorical, but royalty does not arise.

This error has started to appear in more and more actual places--not just over instant messenger when everyone's in a hurry and not paying attention. I see it in serious columns, on other (serious) blogs, and last night it appeared at some point while I was seeing Iron Man, although I cannot remember in what context; I can only remember the rage.

Spell checkers do not notice this sort of error, because "rein" and "reign" are both words. But the important thing to recall about your spell checker is that it does not actually know English. It just pretends. You should not be the one just pretending.

Why does George Lucas still owe me fifty bucks?

It might be more than that, actually, because you now need a second mortgage to make sure you've seen the Oscar contenders, but that's all I demand.

I am not seeing the new Indiana Jones film in cinemas. I am sick and tired of lining George Lucas's pockets with ill-gotten, soulless lucre. It's been decades since he made a decent film (rounding up from Last Crusade's 1989 release date), but the movies still make astoundingly large amounts of money.

This is money that could be better spent on anything. Fifty bucks (a conservative estimate of what I spent on those putrescent prequels, some of which I saw more than once in the vain hope that they would improve) would buy you a very nice and fairly large bottle of gin. This bottle of gin would give you hours and hours of enjoyment, instead of two to two and a half hours spent banging your head against the seat in front of you.

It's partly my own stupid fault that I let that jackass take my money. An iron conviction that the movies couldn't be that bad went unbroken in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But now I've recovered. He gets no more of my money. From what I hear about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I've made a good decision.

Why do people still hit reply all?

This was a joke we made about clueless internet denizens ten years ago. Of kinks that needed ironing, I would have thought we would have handled this one.

But no. They still do it. And it's not just old people, or people one is inclined to think are slightly, shall we say, stupid. If it were, I would understand it a little bit. Those are the people who enjoy lecturing us on the nature of the internet but have no actual knowledge of their subject, deciding that "series of tubes" is the best way to describe it.

But normal people hit "reply all" as well. What will it take to make them stop? The buttons are clearly marked on every client I have ever used. It is significantly more difficult to reply to all than to reply to one on Gmail, which is widely used. It is highly unlikely that it's an honest mistake.

Are they doing it out of a perverse desire to make the rest of us both miserable and insane? Because that's just mean.

Why do certain people wear white socks with dress shoes?

Who are you, Michael Jackson?

I shouldn't notice your socks unless they're actually interesting. I don't mind argyle. I don't mind little elephants. Those are cute and amusing.

But white socks with (presumably dark) dress shoes are unforgivable. You look like a fashion-blind nerd from the 80s. Now, you might be fashion-blind nerd, although probably not from the 80s. You shouldn't broadcast this to the world. Attempts to look like a human being are always appreciated.

You are not allowed to wear white socks unless you are a) wearing athletic shoes or b) wearing white bucks with your striped blazer.

Why does the extraneous "at" appear?

"Where are you at?" "Where did you get that at?" "Where is that at?"

Aside from pedantic concerns about putting the preposition at the end of the sentence, which is dreadful, in every case the "at" is completely unnecessary. You would never say "At where are you?" The question is, "Where are you?" You have the interrogative, the predicate, and the subject. That's all you need. Really, I promise. You don't need a dangling preposition.

And there are those ads, with the old people, and their cell phones, and it's not really clear what's going on because of the strange hip-hop and the random yelling. But in those ads there's an "at" where there shouldn't be one. "Where y'at?" Maybe? I don't know.

The "at" doesn't help. It just makes the sentence ugly. It's useless and linguistically awful. Stop doing it!

Why didn't England qualify for Euro 2008?

Well, evidently they weren't good enough. And I know what you'll say: "But with that talent? How can you say that? They are so spoiled for choice in the midfield it's like going to Yale and trying to pick out the biggest weenie!"

But they didn't win enough matches to qualify, which is actually, and irrefutably, the only reliable barometer for quality of a team. I mean, this is a team that managed to lose to Croatia at Wembley. Weak. Yeah, and don't tell me how Croatia beat Germany. I've been watching the tournament through my teary haze of despair.

And I know that a lot of my favorite footballers are playing in the tournament because there are so many foreign players in England blah blah blah jingocakes. It's not the same. I mean, seriously. What's a major tournament without England crashing out on penalties with as much heartbreak as they can possibly stuff into two hours?

(Hooray! Special extra tournament post.)

Why would someone give a horse performance-enhancing drugs?

Number one, it's cheating. I don't care if it's legal in Kentucky, Maryland, and New York. It's still cheating.

But it's also cruel. The horse can't say no. The horse doesn't know what you're doing. It's a massive betrayal of trust, like kicking a dog. The animal doesn't have the judgement or the ability to refuse you.

Jose Canseco, when offered drugs, can say, "Yes, please." A horse can do nothing of the sort. You have now involved a creature who has no agency in the matter. And that's just sick and manipulative.

I guess I'll just have to use the "sport" tag, as I don't have a "useless disgusting pustules" tag.

Why don't people hand in library items on time?

The other person at my library who watches Doctor Who has had series three for about a week longer than he was allowed. (No, they don't have it at the local Blockbuster, and I refuse to do Netflix because if there were no effort involved in my watching videos I would immediately become a total couch potato.) In many ways, this amuses me, because he will have to pay astronomical late fines.

However. It also prevents me from watching Doctor Who. Which is inexcusable. And it's really not that difficult to hand things in on time. They give you a little card with the due date. It is possible now to check these things on the internet. And, if you were not too busy to check the thing out in the first place, you are not too busy to bring it back. That's how libraries work. The privilege of taking things away from the building for no money comes with the duty of bringing it back on time so that someone else can do the same.

It's profoundly anti-social to abuse library privileges. Libraries are founded on much of what is admirable in the human psyche--a desire for widely available information and culture with no distinctions of class or education. And, of course, silly British television. They are not something lightly to be dismissed, because doing so destroys any hope we might have for a voluntarily civilized society.

That's right. It may seem to you that you've just forgotten for a week to take your books back, but in fact you are striking at the pillars of civilization. Well done, you.

Why does Frank Gehry still get work?

His latest creation, or at least the latest one of which I am aware, is the science library at Princeton. It looks as though someone ate the Sydney Opera House and a load of bricks and then was spectacularly sick.

Even at the end of campus where it is, where buildings are ugly and scientists and mathematicians spend their miserable lives, it stands out for ugliness. I thought that this ugliness was only the intermediate stages, when it was wrapped in yellow insulation, but in fact it is finished or nearly so and is still hideous.

I am convinced that modern architecture is some cruel joke perpetrated on us by cynical architects who have a betting pool on what the worst thing is that they can sell for the most money. I have a feeling Gehry is running away with the prize.

The building doesn't even look as though it's useful. It's a jumble with odd-shaped rooms and roofs. By my calculations, about one and a half stacks of books will fit in each room on account of the odd shapes. This seems to me not to be, strictly speaking, efficient.

Be strong! Have the guts to hire some no-name architect who will not give the blueprints to his ferrets for bedding and then submit them.

Why does Brooks Brothers hate women?

I mean, lots of people hate women, but Brooks does it in a totally uncalled for way.

Their men's polo shirts come in more colors than their women's. By a factor of about two. This is unfair. Who says I don't want six shades of grey polo shirts? Because I totally do.

And no, ladies can't wear the gents' shirts. There are a couple pretty basic anatomical reasons, and they can't be ignored. (Consider where the little golden fleece would fall on a lady if she wore the men's shirt.)

I'm not saying the gents' shirts shouldn't come in four million colors. I like a man in an outlandish polo shirt as much as the next girl (only in a polo shirt, not in a real shirt, I'm not capitulating on yesterday's post). I'm just saying if they make the cloth for men they may as well offer it for women.

Why do men wear color on color shirt and tie?

It's lazy and unattractive. As far as I can tell, the thought process goes roughly like this:

1. I am wearing a purple shirt, because I mistakenly think it is suave and sophisticated.
2. I do not know what colors go with purple, because it's not a color that shirts should actually be.
3. Purple has to go with purple.
4. Right?

While purple often goes with purple, a purple tie does not go with a purple shirt. First, because from a distance no one can tell you are wearing a tie. Second, because up close you look like a credulous buffoon. Magazines have told you that this look is acceptable. They have lied.

You may wear a tie the same color as your shirt if you are dressed for the evening. A clue: both the shirt and tie in this situation are white. Other than that, you must cudgel your brain so that you find a tie that coordinates rather than matching directly. As your shirt is blue or white, this should not be difficult. Yes, your shirt is blue or white, because those are the colors shirts are. Yes, they are. Stop your effete, hyper-modern whining.

And buy a nice striped tie, for crying out loud.

Why are ecstasies over nature still accepted as anything but jejune?

One would think that this sort of thing would have gone out of fashion with the lesser Romantic poets, or at least with everyone else under twenty-five for the last century. Or at least one would have hoped so.

Certainly trees are nice. So are flowers. Sometimes they are even breath-takingly pretty. A well-ordered garden, or even a mad profusion of wildflowers, can be lovely, and it's true that they themselves will never be passé.

Raptures, however, are not endearing. They do not succeed in making you look like a naïf. They merely make you look as though you wish to look like a naïf. Which means, in point of fact, only that you are an idiot.

Thoreau is rubbish. And he was ages ago. Grow up.

Why can't people wear mortarboards correctly?

They are meant to have the flat bit parallel to the ground. This is your only hope.

Yes, they look silly. They do not, however, look less silly when worn crookedly. Wearing the mortarboard on the back of the head reduces one to an inane Alfred E. Neuman caricature. Wearing it tipped to one side makes one look drunk. This isn't necessarily a problem, but academic processions are supposed to be dignified affairs.

I know that it is difficult, as an undergraduate, wearing academic dress for the first or second time, to accept criticism for wearing it badly when the faculty also wear their own very badly. Tough. Others' inadequacy is never an excuse for one's own. Do you want to be that member of the faculty who is ridiculed by his friends for being unable to pin his hood properly? I think not.

Academic dress had been the same for centuries. It is supposed to look formalized and archaic. It's not stylish and there's nothing to be done about that. Please, accept this. Wear it correctly.

Why are the Rose's bottles so defective?

Both the grenadine and the lime cordial leak all over creation. And they're sticky, so this is a huge pain.

Bottles should keep the liquid in. That's the whole point of a bottle, isn't it? Not to leak all over the place? I thought we had this figured out.

It's all the sizes, too. It's not as though the small one is a funky size that makes it impossible to have the tin cap flush with the glass bottle. The big ones have the same problem and leak even more grenadine.

I realize that the metal cap is picturesque. Or something. I don't care. I'm sick of having a sticky mess in my liquor cabinet.

Why do people have no concept of aesthetic harmony in ecclesiastical buildings?

The Princeton University chapel, while not especially old, is conventionally attractive and well-conceived. It looks, in point of fact, like a church, and a much older church than it actually is.

The bones of the building, then, are lovely. Which makes me all the angrier that they have hung these psychedelic vomit banners in the nave. I spent much of my undergraduate career planning accidents in which they would disappear in a mysterious conflagration.

Now, these banners are hideous in any context. They are vaguely abstract, they are asymmetrical, and the only reason that they have any colors that match anything at all is that the stained glass is pretty lavish. But these banners also have no common aesthetic heritage with the chapel. They're just modern and ugly and incongruous.

Handsome Gothic churches are special in that they need very little in the way of extraneous décor. They certainly shouldn't be saddled with modern and revolting monstrosities.

Why are recent beer jackets insufficiently tacky?

You drink beer in them. You spill beer on them. You wear them once a year, in a crowd in which you are almost guaranteed not to be wearing the most hideous thing.

They should not be understated. They should have as much orange as possible. It should be absolutely incomprehensible to wear them anywhere other than their intended venue. Not "slightly weird," not "fashion blind." Absolutely incomprehensible.

Mine is nice; I'm not saying it's not. But nice is not an appropriate descriptor for something called a "beer jacket." "Beer jacket" cries out for bold and unapologetic eye-destroying ugliness. Get it together.