Work had a Low Country Boil this evening and I went wearing one black shoe and one brown one. I would like to pretend that’s atypical but let’s face it – it probably happens more often than not. What do you expect when you make a person that’s been working from home for the last 6 years suddenly start dressing up and appear in public? They’re lucky that I wasn’t wearing HOUSE shoes.
They weren’t the shoes I started with; I actually went out earlier in the day to meet my Radigals and I wore some Chuck Taylor’s, but since we went from cold and rainy to 112 degrees by the afternoon, I threw on something a little more breathable. This. Is. Riveting.
At Radigals, we had a nice holy discussion about Grammar Nazi’s and how I’d recently learned that saying one feels “nauseous” is incorrect. If you feel you are nauseous, you’re actually saying you feel like you are inspiring nausea in others. You probably mean to say you feel NAUSEATED. It’s a little confusing so I just vowed to say “I’m a gonna hurl” from now on. And I realize I ended that sentence with a preposition but Grammar Nazis need something to keep them occupied, amiright?
That nausea inducing conversation led to some other commonly misused phrases such as saying you’re on tender hooks. No, you’re on TENTERHOOKS.
Tenterhooks are hooks in a device called a tenter. Tenters were originally large wooden frames which were used as far back as the 14th century in the process of making woollen cloth. After a piece of cloth was woven, it still contained oil from the fleece and some dirt. A craftsperson called a fuller (also called a tucker or wa[u]lker) cleaned the woollen cloth in a fulling mill, and then had to dry it carefully or the woollen fabric would shrink.
Now don’t you feel better knowing that?
“Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
– the principal, “Billy Madison”
I don’t know about grammar Nazi, but I did go to Livingston Grammar School and the Halfacres came from Germany.
Seriously, that Fugly thing makes me feel nauseated. It’s nauseous. Seriously.