Why can't people pronounce "chipotle?"

Can you say "outlay?" Does your brain automatically change it to "oultay?" No, no it doesn't.

The sound isn't hard to make. At all. So the barrier we have here has got to be that you can't read. And if you straight up can't, that's a shame, and you can mispronounce "chipotle" because, quite frankly, you have bigger problems.

But if you can, there's no excuse. Say "chipottle." That's fine. A scrupulous disregard for all foreign languages, is, on balance, to be admired. But you must be wrong deliberately, or it doesn't count.

Why do people shop at Urban Outfitters?

Anthropologie, I am also talking to you.

Say, for the purposes of argument, you would like to wear vintage clothing. It's funky and stylish, right? You know what the correct solution to this problem is?

GO TO A VINTAGE STORE.

If you buy something that is mass-produced to look vintage, it is not vintage. It is not funky, it is not unique. You have also paid far too much for it.

You want a concert t-shirt from Paul McCartney's New World Tour? Steal it from your sister. You want a heinous 70s plaid skirt? Steal it from your mother.

The whole point of this sartorial aesthetic is that it is distinctive. If everyone else who wants to dress distinctively looks exactly like you, we have a massive failure.

Why do people kneel before the Sanctus?

You kneel after the Benedictus, fools!

I guess I should be glad that people are kneeling in church at all, instead of going to a hippy-dippy feel-good guitar-ridden hour of bilge, but I'm not. If you're going to go to proper church, do it properly.

These over-religious types kneel immediately at the first "sanctus." Those of us who actually know better remain standing. But there aren't so many of us any more, and the vast majority of the congregation, in a noisy shuffle throughout the first two or three lines of the Sanctus, have taken to their knees, either through total ignorance or contemptible uncertainty.

One is left with the unsavory choice of graceful capitulation or righteous stubbornness. This is unsatisfactory. Work on your churchmanship, people.

Why is everyone such a Scrooge?

Yes, I realize Christmas can be expensive, stressful, sleepless, and unpleasant. Sounds like a personal problem to me.

Christmas is awesome. Stop complaining, get your act together, don't ruin everyone else's day. Christmas is December 25th every damn year. It does not sneak up on you; you are just a spazz.

No, I've not finished my shopping either. But that is my fault because I'm lazy. It is not Christmas's fault.

Some of us love Christmas (I know! I love something! It's shocking!), and we are happy to do the work if you don't want to. Either tell us and we'll get it done, or suck. It. Up.

Why is chewing gum packaging so ineffective?

I'm talking to you, Orbit. And to you, Trident. What is the point of packaging that totally fails to keep its contents, you know, inside the package?

Trident used to be in those little foil packets. And you would tear off a strip every time you took a piece, and refold it tidily. This worked until the last piece of gum, at which point you threw the last shred of foil away. I think that this packaging had the added bonus of being incredibly cheap to produce.

Now, however, they have redone the packaging, so that if you use it in the intended fashion, you get about two pieces in until it falls apart in the bottom of your handbag and scatters gum everywhere. If you, through sheer cussedness, attempt to use it in a way that might work, it lasts only about two pieces more until it, too, explodes all over your purse. Incorrect, people!

Orbit also just disintegrates in a handbag, but at least it was always that way and is therefore not a step down. The regular paper and foil mess in the PlenTpak is also no good. Trident were really the only people who had this down: it was compact, it could be re-closed indefinitely, and was reasonably tidy.

If it ain't broke...

Why are Christmas ornaments so god-awfully tacky?

My personal favorite this year is the snowman family in festive wear. See, because it tries really hard not to be tacky, by putting the snowmen in muted red and green, so it doesn't seem all tacky and garish.

But it misses. Because the things are still heinous. First, they're not actually shaped like snowmen, so any cute nostalgia is denied. Second, they have a shimmery finish over their rosy cheeks. Third, they have rosy cheeks! They are snowmen, people. They don't have blood. They cannot have rosy cheeks.

They are just such faux-crafty, kitschy, putrescent garbage that they make my skin crawl.

Why does everyone love Zooey Deschanel?

She does not look adorably wide-eyed and quirky; she looks concussed. There is a distinct and important difference.

Also, she can't act. Or at least she was absolutely terrible in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which basically means she must die, because screwing up Douglas Adams is one of the worst sins. And, yeah, maybe the casting was bad, but anyone who plays Trillian by looking like a massive idiot for the whole film needs to be punted halfway to Betelgeuse.

At least it seems that most of her recent stuff was truly, mind-bendingly awful, so maybe she'll fade into a decent obscurity and I won't have to stare at her insipid face any more.

Why does Miss Sobieski go by "Leelee?"

"Liliane" is a beautiful name. It also, incidentally, does not make you sound as if you are hedging your bets in case you need at some point to take up the oldest profession or any kind of surrogate for the oldest profession.

Or, you know, twelve.

I realize that she started making films when rather young and that "Liliane Sobieski" does give off a sort of "I want to be foreign and exotic and Catherine Deneuve" vibe, but I don't care. All sorts of young actresses have not only grown-up but actually totally wackadoo names. Abigail Breslin? What is this, The Crucible? Dakota Fanning? Seriously? What's next? Illinois Carpenter? We named the dog Illinois!

If your name is Liliane and you are beautiful, do not sell yourself short! Gross.

Why is Lincoln Financial Field so unnavigable?

I am, naturally, in favor of keeping the rabble out of the swank seats. But only the rabble should be kept out of the swank seats.

If I, to keep my common touch, wish to visit some of my tragically less fortunate friends where they sit in the nosebleeds, it should not take me ten to fifteen minutes to make it back to my own seat. I'm not stupid, and my sense of direction is reasonable to good. All I ask is stairs. And doors that open. You have sufficient staff. What is your problem?

Why is booze so damn tasty?

Many things that are bad for you taste nice. But liquor really goes out of its way to entice.

This, I feel, is unfair.

Why do people leave the stickers on their ballcaps?

I had always been under the impression that, when you buy clothing, you are careful to remove tags and stickers. You know, because it's not in the store any more. It's yours. You are wearing it. It is clothing. To be worn. And ballcaps were extensions of boys' heads, saturated with heaven knew what filth.

But this is apparently no longer the case. Ballcaps are not meant to look as though they are more than fifteen minutes old. Which I could understand, I think. I like shiny new clothing as much as anyone else. But I don't leave the tags on. That's embarrassing.

Also, what happens if, for some reason, such as, you know, that you wear your cap on your head, which sweats, you have to launder it? The sticker comes off. No shiny sticker. Do you buy a new cap? Because that's wasteful.

I hate this phenomenon largely because it is so cosmically mystifying and strange. I mean, I realize that the sticker is shiny and silver and exciting, but if that's what you like about it, get out your sticker book and add it to your collection.

Why does Hornblower marry Maria?

The real issue I have here is that he's not married to me, but even beyond that, he definitely shouldn't marry her. She's stupid, and coarse, and she hasn't even the decency to be pretty.

I know why he does it. First, because he is too honorable for his own good, and also too soft-hearted. That would be reasonable. Men are suckers.

But it's really because it's another reason to hate himself. And Hornblower is always looking for reasons to hate himself. He can be ashamed of himself over the weakness that caused him to marry her. He can be ashamed of himself because she is not good enough to be a captain's wife.

And then! He can hate himself for falling in love with Barbara, who is in all ways superior, just because he has the self-flagellating probity of character that makes him marry poor, unfortunate girls just for the satisfaction of feeling like a dog when a worthwhile woman makes a pass at him.

At least C.S. Forester has the decency to kill Maria off. God knows it wouldn't have been a surprise if he'd left her alive for the remainder of the books just so Hornblower can hate himself with greater virtuosity.

Why does Saab have such a lousy motto?

"Born from jets." There's just something about it that fails to roll trippingly off the tongue.

I'm not sure I could do better with that material. I think what they mean to say is, "We used to make jets, now we make cars, and for this reason our cars are awesome." Obviously that's an even worse motto, although it could probably establish some sort of cachet with the wordy indie crowd of unnecessary prolixity.

Better mottoes might be:
Saab: Not as Ugly as You Remember
Saab: European-engineered! Now with less fascism!
Saab: Val Kilmer totally drove one in The Saint, guys! Guys?

I mean, they have these swanky commercials with pretty blue skies and not-hideous cars, but then all they can produce is "born from jets." Woo! I am excited now!

Edited to add: Wow, this is embarrassing. As one of my more erudite readers pointed out, Val Kilmer drove a Volvo in The Saint, not a Saab. I plead that I saw the movie a long time ago, it was terrible, and I apologize in fourteen different positions for mixing up my ugly European cars.

Why does anyone care about anything after the Principate?

Seriously? Who cares? The literature is rubbish. The politics are even worse. There are pockets of brilliance and honesty, but they are fighting a lost cause badly--it's cute, but they're no Leonidas.

More importantly, why do I have to learn about it? I don't care at all. I don't even really care about Augustus' later life. It gets boring.

There's a reason we call it "silver." Because it's rubbish. They use prepositions! That is garbage.

Why is applause inflation so totally out of control?

Not every performance is a standing ovation performance. Not every soloist deserves an encore. Those are for things out of the ordinary. That is why encores and standing ovations exist.

It is not better for your child if he is brought up to expect ridiculously inflated applause for every achievement or mere stage in his life. It is doing no favors to your local ballet or orchestra. Either they know you're lying to them, and are embarrassed, or they don't, which is embarrassing.

Also, one needn't applaud every thirty seconds during a ballet. For virtuosic solos, yes. For big set-pieces, when they end, yes. When Jeffrey Gribler spins for a minute and a half, yes. For every tiddling jeté, entrechat quatre, and pirouette, no, no, no.

One does not applaud when the curtain goes up! You are confused! It is time to applaud when the production is over, so you know how it went.

I know you don't know anything about art, but, seriously, it gets better than this. You could pretend to be blasé.

Why is Virginia Tech putting on their championship gear before the game is over?

I know that the deficit is pretty much insuperable, but that's no excuse. It's not over till it's over. It is the opposite of class to put the stuff on before the clock has run down all the way.

Also, Boston College can totally have them excommunicated.

The fat lady has not sung! Learn some manners.

Why is Army wearing the worst football uniforms of all time?

Dear Army,

You are supposed to wear grey. This is so we can tell you apart from Navy, who wear blue. This is basic.

I don't care how much you like your camouflage and you are trying to lord it over Navy that you get to wear it and they don't because they live on ships where camouflage is not strictly strategic. It looks stupid. The pants and the helmets are bad enough, but using camouflage in the numbers is just heinous. Also, we know you love your country, which is great, but "duty, honor, country" is not something you put across the back of your jersey. It looks asinine and it is cheap.

The Navy uniforms are no prize, but LORD, are they better than yours.

Love,
Angry Face

Why did anyone ever record "Michelle?"

Much less the Beatles.

That song is terrible. It's slow and boring, but without being touching and sweet. The words are stupid and clumsy in both English and French. It's translinguistically dreadful!

I realize that Paul McCartney sometimes just throws things into the kitchen sink to write his lyrics (witness "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"), but he asked for help on this one! Sometimes people just need to say, "No, Paul, that is stupid. People will buy it anyway, but then they will hate you for it."

Stick to German if you're feeling multilingual ("Komm, gib mir deine Hand" is great.).

Why do people mispronounce "coupon?"

They pronounce it as if it were spelled "kewpon." It's not. It's spelled "coupon."

It's from the French, I believe, but that is neither here nor there. I cannot think of another word in English or indeed in any other language that has the "ou" diphthong pronounced as "yew." That's just not the way that diphthong works. It makes an "oo" sound. Unless it makes an "ow" sound.

I hasted to point out that these are people who undoubtedly pronounce "duke" as "dook," so the "kewpon" thing is not only incorrect and asinine but also inconsistent.

Is there something about words and phrases that begin with "coup" that just makes brains blow a gasket?

Why are there so many television shows about people in court?

I'm not talking Boston Legal, here. I was doing some work in a café pretty much all day yesterday, and they have a television, and on it, in a never-ending sequence of horrifying people, is a slew of "Judge So-and-so" shows.

They are all humiliating and dreadful. If you could imagine a show in which the people from Wheel of Fortune show up, but are even more stupid and have probably committed some kind of mind-blowingly asinine crime, that would be it. Or sometimes it appears to be a divorce court, where you find out that two imbeciles have gotten married but one is now writing to her ex-boyfriend in prison so her husband wants a divorce. Usually it is stupefying to consider either of these people having been in any relationship ever in their lives.

I realize that idiots sue other idiots for very small amounts of money and that more idiots divorce even more idiots for half-baked reasons, but do they have to do it on television? Who volunteers for this stuff? "Hey, Mom, I'm on TV" is all well and good, but how fabulous is "Hey, Mom, I'm on TV because my next-door neighbor has accused me of beating her up?"

And who watches it? (Besides me, I mean, because I'm terrible at ignoring a television within my line of sight.) I understand the Schadenfreude aspect, but after a while doesn't it just make you want to slit your wrists? This stuff isn't funny; it's sad. And you gotta laugh, but there's Monty Python for that.

Why don't the Detroit Lions even bother to show up?

I let this go over the weekend, just in case I was feeling it too keenly. But survey says I'm still steamed about it, so here you go.

It's Thanksgiving. You're playing at home, as you always do, because you are a proud (or at least once-proud) franchise, on national television. There have been rumblings in the past few years about taking the Thanksgiving game away from you because you're consistently terrible.

There are two options: either you put up a fight, or you lie down and do your best opossum impression. Which one do you choose?

Now, I realize that all three of the games on Thanksgiving were awful. But often the Cowboys game is good. Sometimes they win, which is disappointing, but at least it adds some interest.

The Lions game has been terrible for years. Once they played the Colts, and I wouldn't swear to this, but I have the impression that Dungy pulled Peyton in the third quarter.

You are an NFL team! Get it together! Try! Please!