Month: December 2017

Happy Holidays and Many Happy Returns (for Me)

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Happy Holidays” is a pretty simple grammatical construction, as are “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Hanukkah,” “Happy New Year” and various other celebratory sayings. But we use “Many Happy Returns” without, at least in my case, understanding what it means.many-happy-returns-explained

I’m a weirdo who’s lived way too long for my meager abilities and accomplishments, but my 39th birthday (being celebrating for something like the 39th time) arrives this Sunday, on Christmas Eve. Now I follow astrology, numerology, Buddhism, Friedrich Nietzsche, the Akashic Records, The Lotus Sutra and Tao te Ching (The Way) as guides to my life and basically the meaning of existence.

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Categories: Grammar Notes

Most Annoying Word in the English Language

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It wouldn’t be my choice, but a poll by Marist College determined that “whatever” is the most annoying word in the American lexicon for the ninth straight year.

grammar-source-answer-to-all-your-English-questionsThe poll was conducted Nov. 6-9 of 1,074 adults with an error factor of 3 percent.

Now, if I were asked to pick the most annoying (and meaningless) word in use by most Americans, I’d say it’s “awesome.” The use of “awesome” appears to be a substitute for people who can’t formulate a sentence around what they really feel.

“How was the movie?” “Awesome.”

“How was dinner?” “Awesome.”

“How was your death?” “Awesome.”

Anyway, you get the idea.

The rest of the list of the top five, in order, consists of “fake news,” “no offense,” “literally,” and “you know what I mean.”

Now, that’s an awesome list, you know?