This may or may not be inspired by the nebula original abolish everything, a show I have not watched.
The now ultra-common usage of “whenever”, when they actually mean “when”.
I can’t fucking stand it. But it’s everywhere now. I have no idea how it got so common but I’m surrounded by people who use it incorrectly.
I wonder if I’m using it incorrectly now.
We can go to the cinema whenever you like.
That is how I would use it. And I would use when like, when did you go to the cinema?
You’ve used it correctly! An incorrect usage would be:
“Whenever I go to the cinema, I get popcorn.”
Huh…
I would use that too, so I decided to search it up and this is what I found.
When is used for a specific time or single occurrences.
Whenever is used for repeated events or entries with uncertain dates or times.
So your example seems like it should be whenever, as it’s not talking about a specific time but more every time they go.
You’re correct that it’s not grammatically wrong, but a subtle semantic mis-match. Let’s bring in the difference between “every time” and “whenever”. While “when” and “every time” are interchangeable, “whenever” and “every time” are not. “Every time” is exact and without fail, while “whenever” implies unpredictability or indifference to the exact location.
“When (strongly implied every time) I go to the theater (exact location), I get popcorn.”
“Every time (explicitly) I go to the theater (exact location), I get popcorn.”
“Whenever (unpredictable, indifferent) I go to the theater (exact location -mismatch with unpredictability) I get popcorn”
Does that make sense?
That explanation makes logical sense, but honestly I suck at spelling and grammar. I also feel like a lot of it is location and setting dependant and people interpret things in different ways.
I want to abolish door knobs. They account for a thousand injuries in the world every few months. They must go.
(For the sake of the question since the question is over everyone’s head in the section)
The 9/10 extension on gasoline pricing.
When this fuel was 13¢ per gallon, sure some folks might want to compete with finer-grained pricing.
It’s time to drop that pretense
The colour red so that way whenever somebody goes to “Red Lobster” all they see is “Lobster” on the sign.
Would this have the unfortunate side effect of also eliminating the color pink? What about purple and orange?
Motion-sensing faucets in public bathrooms. I feel like there is somebody behind the mirror trolling me every time.
I don’t understand why they don’t just have a foot pedal to activate those things. You could make an argument for handicapped people, but you could just have one sink use conventional knobs.
Probably because it’s cheaper to have it all be in one unit that’s easier to install. User experience has nothing to do with it.
My apartment has motion censor faucets.
I live in a nightmare.
News outlets taking quotes from company PR/employees and including them alongside facts about reality. “Company x does something horrible, here is the data. Meanwhile, the CEO says it’s inaccurate because bs reasonexcuse.”. So much of corporate media is this, we’ve nearly lost the expectation a news outlet have any sense of responsibility outside of an easy quote from the paid company representative. Every single employee quote should come with footer “but of course this person does pay their mortgage based on saying whatever the companies needs it to to continue doing what benefits it the most so this is idiotically biased”.
24 hour news is to blame.
You can’t have one story anymore. You need to turn it into like 20 stories. Which means that one story, but the perspective of every single other person. The CEO, the Janitor, Ja Rule, everyone.
The word ‘literally’.
It’s been abused and needs to now just die.
Additionally, anyone uttering that word must be slapped by everyone who hears it.
Literally slapped?
Also, the word ‘actually’. Fuck that word.
Property taxes. Land value taxes are just better.
Mosquitoes.
This is one I can get behind.
At least the handful of pest species yes.
As I understand it, there are no mosquito-obligate predators, and other insects will likely satisfy the food chain
(Feel free to prove wrong)
Money. It’s just a mechanism of control because those with the power to share never learned to do so. They’re the kids at the playground hogging the swing set while everyone else is getting wood chips kicked in their face. Humanity in a nutshell.
Maybe not humorous, but I hope it paints a picture.
I would like to abolish subscription fees for most items that really shouldn’t have subscription fees. If you bought the item, it should be yours. That’s the point of buying the item.
I think if you buy something, and you modify it to provide subscription services without being subscribed, it should be legal.
Example, that stupid Mercedes where they charge a fee for the heated seats. If you flash your own software on the car that allows heated seats, it should totally be legal to do so.
That’s an interesting thought
Yeah, the crap car companies are pushing is dangerous. Imagine not being allowed to modify the software on your phone or computer. They are essentially arguing that.
The inconsistency of apostrophe usage in English for possessives and contractions. If it was instead written…
It-s a wonderful day out today, take your phone but turn off it’s data so you can soak up the clear blue skies.
It’d be so much fucking easier and my OCD would be satiated.
To be honest I think we could just ditch the apostrophe in contractions altogether. I cant think of a situation in which itd make anything less clear. At worst there are perhaps uses of the fairly rare non-contraction verb “cant” that wouldn’t be immediately clear
I’d be cool with that - I don’t care how we mark contractions just as long as we stop reusing apostrophes for it.
It-s
Thanks I hate it. Also wouldn’t the “it’s” be ‘its’ without apostrophe at all?
Eh - I thought dash was a pretty reasonable symbol for “There’s a contraction here” I don’t really care about the actual symbol as long as we stop using the same symbol for contractions and possessives. In my sample
It-swould currently be writtenIt'sand theit's(a possessive) would beitsif that’s what you’re asking.Possessives always get an apostrophe outside of weird exceptions where they clash with contractions. I’m proposing we fix that. Also - let’s bring back mass possessions like “At the bake sale Moms’ baked goods are always delicious”
“Its” is much easier to remember as possessive if you understand it’s a possessive pronoun, like his, hers, ours, and theirs. No apostrophes in any of them.
I don’t understand what you’re saying about “mass” possessives. That never went away, except for people’s who don’t know how to do it correctly.
It’s just a matter of taste I guess. But now I’ve given it a thought and I honestly don’t get it, you want to replace the apostrophe because it has two uses (three if you count that some people like myself use it as quotes as well) with the hyphen that has many more uses like compound words, prefixes, ranges, dates, divided words at the end of a line…
Not the hyphen specifically - just a distinct symbol for contractions.
So an n-dash? Which is arguably indistinguishable from a hyphen unless you put them together, so most people just use hyphens. Or another dash-like character in between?
I mean to each their own, if you like it you like it. I’m not saying your way is bad or worse, I’m just a nerd who also likes to use punctuation in a peculiar and personal way. Just to be clear that this is a light-hearted conversation and not a ‘yOu aRE WroNg!’ kinda thing. :)
Granted, but no hyphen.
Henceforth, possession shall be denoted with ` and contraction shall be denoted with '. Possessive plurals shall be denoted with ``.
Billionaires.
Also, the propagation of the idea that you are poor because of the actions of even poorer people.
Professional sports teams. I’m just sick of hearing people blather on endlessly about them and expecting me to join in.
Bring back gladiators!
Its the drawn out bullshit that I have no patience for, its a midseason game between two teams who arent going to make the finals… calm the fuck down.
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