Keyboard Philosopher

As all my GNU/Linux friends probably know, Windows Vista (formerly ‘Longhorn’) Beta 1 has been released. Many sites are posting screenshots of the new features. Some of the new things are cool: virtual folders, in-file searches, etc. I was a bit impressed at first, but then I realized that every new feature in Vista is available on Linux systems already, although many are not standardly deployed yet. So my respect for the new features was reduced to a respect for their ability to get these features out the door and widely available at a faster rate.

Then I stumbled upon the article I’m So Excited by Microsoft Vista. Not., which restored my perspective on the situation. Yeah, these tools are not available in a stock Linux distro yet, but Vista is at least a year off. Where will we be by then? Pssst…have you seen GNOME 2.12 yet?

Wow. Since I actually managed to post about language without having my ass chewed off by anti-grammar guerrillas, I have to point out one more which irks me.

“out loud”

When I was a kid many of my teachers would tell us students to read “out loud”. Later I learned the word ‘aloud’ and almost immediately realized that “out loud” was a lazy, colloquial bastardization of the word ‘aloud’.

Now this one is a tougher fight than the others I have complained about because you can find some dictionary support for the incorrect version (namely Merriam-Webster, which is complete trendwhore of a dictionary, IMHO). But I’m a firm believer that we must hold the line on some aspects of language—not simply sanction whatever jibberish the masses spout (how many of you really want ‘nother’ in the dictionary because Midwesterners like to say “that’s a whole nother story”? How about ‘ain’t'?).

But I’m not without support on this one. Garner’s Modern American Usage (2003) says, “’Out loud’ is simply the colloquial equivalent of ‘aloud.’ Use ‘aloud’ in all but the most casual of settings.” So I’m not just crazy.

Yes, that means LOL is wrong. LA.

I have to bitch about this because nearly everyone does this now and then—including many writing professionals—and it’s just sloppy.

“for free”

‘Free’ is an adjective or an adverb (or a verb under the other definition), but never a noun. That said, you can get something free, you can get something free of charge, you can get something gratis, you can get something for nothing, but you cannot get something for free.

Just drop the extra word, save some breath and say it right. It’s not a ‘buy one, get one for free’ sale, is it?

“some more”

No, you cannot get ‘some more’ ice cream (‘for free’, as it were). You can get some, or you can get more, but not both together. It’s redundant. Pick the word which expresses what you mean to say and then drop the other. If you’ve had some and you are asking for some yet again, then you are clearly asking for more. Alternately, if you are asking for more, then they know that you want some. You don’t need both words.

Say it slowly. Some more. It doesn’t even sound right. It only even sounds tolerable when you slur in into ‘suh-more’. And we know that’s not right.

We all slip up now and then, but I doubt that most people have even considered these errors.