I tuned in to "[tag]The O’Reilly Factor[/tag]" on Fox last night (Tuesday, March 6) and noticed that, in one of his segments, host [tag]Bill O’Reilly[/tag] employed a body language expert to analyze his discussions with a guest.  I’ve never seen this done before, and everything this expert noted seemed accurate to me.  I’m not sure how often O’Reilly does this type of thing, but if you get a chance, it’s worth experiencing.

Now if it’s something to bloviate over, you’ll have to ask Mr. O’Reilly.

Over at my technical blog called Web Tune-Up Pros, I’m running an article and hot link from the [tag]Copyblogger[/tag] about how to avoid looking dumb in print and online by confusing these sets of words: it’s and its, there and they’re, affect and effect, and your and you’re.  Of course, these same confusions can ruin your writing and communication reputation at work or school as well.  Check out that article and link if you like, but also please take a gander at my new feature in [tag]English Resources[/tag] called Confusin’ Clauses, in which I clarify the usages of that and which.

Even [tag]Thomas Jefferson[/tag] and the Founding Parents (can’t say Fathers anymore due to the PC Police–oops, here they come!) couldn’t get the distinction right between using which and that.

Now, the distinction is simple: that is restrictive and which isn’t; that is essential and which isn’t.  It’s all relative. 

Okay, I’m joking but not joking, and to help clarify the distinction between which and that, I’ll be writing an article soon and posting it here.

Meanwhile, consider these sentences: “A cat that has no claws cannot defend itself.” “A neighbor’s cat, which has no paws, comes by to visit us all the time.”

I’ll be back with further explanations. (And yes, I’m against the declawing of cats.)

Here comes the “hyper-local Internet”!

And what does that mean?

First let’s backtrack and look at some words that originated in Webspeak.  How about viral?  To go “viral” means that your Web site/product/idea catches on and spreads like a virus.  Can anyone engineer a “viral marketing campaign”?  There are a whole slew of sites out there willing to tell you how to do so–if you pay them a high enough fee.

Give me a break.

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India is going through some electoral turmoil as the two-thirds of the populace who do the farming constantly switch political allegiances in hopes that someone will come to their aid.  [tag]Indian farmers[/tag] are overworked and constantly in debt, unable to sell what they farm for what it costs them to produce and market.

One voter, in unmistakable English and logic, observed:

“If I were given a choice, I would like to be born as a European cow, but certainly not as an Indian farmer, in my next birth.”

Cows in Europe earn U.S. $2 a day in government subsidies.

I wish people in America could express themselves so clearly. ” Awesome” just doesn’t convey the same meaning as this plainly spoken English.

Can we now relegate the word awesome to the trash heap of misused and abused words? Does [tag]awesome[/tag] even mean anything, or is it like a basic grunt or groan–just a sound to register your mere presence?

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing it.

"Hey, [tag]dude[/tag], Iran just developed a nuclear bomb and destroyed Israel?"

"Awesome!"

As you can see from this hypothetical but eerily prescient conversation that the word has managed to desensitive people to things around them. If everything is awesome, then there’s nothing ever wrong or bad. Maybe we can retire dude while we’re at it.

Awesome!

No, this is not a variation of Bill Clinton’s question about the meaning of is. Rather, it’s a response to the Academy Awards and its bestowing of an Oscar on Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

Now, that film’s subject matter is global warming, which despite media reports and Gorian proclamations has scientists divided.  Those who want to cash in on the global warming hysteria seem to say it’s been proven; other scientists say there is no conclusive proof whatsoever.

However, this hasn’t stopped either Gore or the United Nations (or for that matter, the media in general) from proclaiming that there can be no more scientific debate. 

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So far, I’ve been unsuccessful in finding any Web sites that detail or discuss words that have been imported into everyday English usage that originated in [tag]rap lyrics[/tag], so I’m opening this for discussion.

If you know of any such words, phrases, grunts or groans, please use the commentary function on this posting to let us know.  (Dirty words are okay, so long as they’re now in the employ of some segment of English-speaking society and are not ethnically or racially offensive, an don’t worry–I do moderate all submissions.)

No, this is not a new category for my blog, but rather a common phenomenon in English.  Two words can sound completely alike, and if we don’t use them frequently enough, we can confuse the two while writing.

Case in point:

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I have to agree with Charles Barkley, he of basketball fame and of the outspoken mouth, when he told Dan Patrick on his radio show that “the [tag]PC police[/tag] should be taken out back and shot.”

I agree, but who are these PC police?

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