Seriously. As a child I enjoyed little more than reading dictionaries and encyclopedias, and when I discovered the OED (and in my tender young manhood, Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and its exhaustive treatment of Koine Greek *sigh*), well, I was in hog heaven.
So, understand that when I read some illiterate blurb in an email come-on to an online article such as the sentence below, I am a bit disturbed:
“It’s not the cheapest set out there, but it’s chalk full of features.”
It’s not that the author of the blurb is necessarily functionally illiterate (he did, after all, manage to spell his misused word correctly *heh*), but that he apparently has no idea that “chalk full” is nonsense reveals that he’s actually read very little. Any even passably semi-literate person such as myself knows full well that the phrase is “chock-full” or a close variant, and dictionary addicts such as I know why (hint *cough*: the majority opinion leans toward the first word in the term deriving from the Middle English “chokken“–meaning to cram or pack tightly, and NO opinion of any literate person even considers “chalk” to be in the same room as “chock” for the expression :-)).
Then blurb was written, more than likely, by some subliterate college graduate who’s heard the expression but never read it… and never even considered that looking up an expression he’s heard but not read might be a Good Thing before putting it in print.
Dumbass.
And, as my Wonder Woman pointed out to me, the writer of that excrescence is apparently an illiterate, uncultured savage whose only exposure to coffee has been limited to the crap sold by Starbucks and other boutique gathering places of the illiterati. Otherwise, he might have heard of, seen or even imbibed some of this:
(OK, OK, my Wonder Woman was too kind to characterize this savage as what he–oh! dread! it could be a “she”! *heh*–obviously is. I added the “illiterate, uncultured savage” and the comment on the crap that’s sold as coffee by Starbucks. Doesn’t make my editorializing incorrect, though.)
“It’s not the cheapest set out there, but it’s chalk full of features.”
“We don’t make sense, but we do like pizza.” — Official motto of the American Non Sequitur Society
FP, I’ll be sure to send a membership invitation to the illiterate loon who wrote the offensive copy.
You’d enjoy life more if you let stuff like that slide. I had a rookie police officer on night shift, not the brightest light bulb in the box; but he worked extra hard to keep up.
One report he wrote had me laughing so hard tears formed. It had to do with a burglary and in the narrative portion he went in to great detail how the room had been tossed along with the Chester Draws.
Lesson, learn how to laugh.
TF, I’d probably laugh except that the person who wrote that copy is a thief. H/she got PAID to write that illiterate crap AND it was published widely enough to influence other illiterate boobs so that such a stupid misuse of English will likely spread. Such people should receive 50 lashes a day from dangling participles until they reform.
I agree with both topics of this post… or at least both of the more obvious topics…
Too many people in society think that they can tell the rest of us what to wear, eat, and think but cannot be bothered to understand the meaning and origins of a phrase before they use it – or write it. Rather it’s a sign that they’re “cool” that they use the latest phrase. Never mind if spelling errors or even the bastardization of the plain meaning of words should reveal them to be illiterate boobs. The rest of their social circle is also composed of illiterate boobs so they just fit in – and the dumbing down of western civilization proceeds apace.
And of course Starbuck’s “coffee” – despite often being the only “high-end” coffee available to the majority of people – is really just burnt, oily crap. It’s almost unfit for human consumption. But then, so is most of the swill that passed for coffee in this country for so long.
Oh, Perri, you’re preachin’ to the choir. *heh* I took some of our freshly-ground coffee in to a “training” meeting for an outside gig I’m working on right now (outside my regular work–just a low-paid “vacation” in that it’s vastly different to what I usually do and so a bit of variety) and folks were amazed by some simple coffee that tasted unlike the sludge they were used to: aromatic, a bit fruity, nice high notes, etc.
As to the rest, I related the topic of this post to one of the others in the meeting–a former small town newspaper editor–and found another kindred soul… 😉
Late to the party as always…ironically, late this time because I’ve dedicated more hours than usual to a 112,000-word piece of non-excrescence that may shift both the location and tenor of my blog. Whereupon I take a break and discover that I probably shouldn’t have used so many multisyllabic words.
Pardon me while I undertake a short exercise in self-defenstration.
Oh – and Perri Nelson is right. The only ways to get a decent cup of coffee in this country are (a) microbreweries (aka “grind it yourself”) and (b) roast it yourself. I’d say more but I’ve preached to enough choirs this week…
“112,000-word piece of non-excrescence”–OK, where did you find such a work? Oh, in yourself, eh? *heh*
And as for (b), “Time, as me for anything but time!” I really need a stack of Round Tuits.
When my kids were younger, they often said “boat-load” to describe large quantities of anything. I always thought they were saying “butt-load.” I finally said “Oh good lord, how much can one butt hold, really? It can’t be much.” They laughed until they cried.