He Is Risible (A Deluxe Easter Grammar Rant!)

I honestly don’t remember the imbecile’s apostrophe (I put the book’s down over there) being very widespread until about 20 years ago, and have a theory I’d like to run past you. I wonder if it didn’t start — as “go for it” started with football fans — with baseball fans seeing the names of such teams as the (Oakland) A’s and (Baltimore) O’s (that is, Athletics and Orioles, respectively) and assuming that pluralizing other nouns requires not just an s, but an apostrophe as well.

I was reminded of this watching American Idol, in which the verb change is never not accompanied by up; one does not change an arrangement or her style of dress in the world of Idol, but changes it up. Am I foolish to wonder if this might have to do with the pitch in baseball thrown at a speed below that the batter is thought to be expecting?

If you or I had a nickel for every time we heard something characterized as very unique, we could run away together to the Azores, there to live in luxury for the rest of our days. The battle for unique as absolute and unquantifiable (something is either unique or it ain’t, much as an electric light is either on or off, and is never said to be very off) seems lost, but I will not give up on nauseous; I will not! The fact that virtually everyone misuses it doesn’t mean that nauseous doesn’t mean "causing nausea", rather than nauseated. And there’s a certain small pleasure in hearing someone say, “Ooh, so I’m nauseous,” and being able to think, “You can say that again!”