Language And Other Disasters

(October 20, 2004)

I have a unique job, this freelance thing I'm doing. Remember, it's a travel search engine that links to travel articles and has forums and user reviews of hotels and restaurants and attractions. One of this job's more bizzaro aspects is how many ordinary chumps' writing I get to see, review and approve for publishing in the User Reviews section.

Which means I can be ready to strangle a total stranger within a few lines of their review.

"One grip I have about this hotel is it's room service price bu tthe break fast buffay is not to bad, you have nothing to loose."

Grr.

The grammar and spelling is one thing, but sometimes it's not even that. Sometimes it's a term, word or phrase that is just plain wrong. However, you can tell based on how the terms, words and phrases are used that it's just a matter of how that person had been raised. For example, I have one friend who says "pink tails" instead of "pigtails" and, if you think about it, neither term really does describe how a girl's hair looks while tied up on either side of her head. Why isn't it called "horse tails" since that's what the hairstyle more resembles? Pigtails? No one's hair looks like a pig's tail unless they've twisted it up with gel. Why NOT pink tails, then?

Me, for example, I have a mother who said "towel papers" for years, instead of "paper towels." I figured out the problem when Maggie (grandma) said "towel papers" one day. I said, A HA! I realized that my mother didn't have a chance. Towel papers it almost was for me, too, but somehow I escaped that particular hand-me-down of language folly. There were others. Bleach was "star water." "Never mind" was "lever mine." That one I still can't figure out.

I've seen, in the User Reviews, the following substiutions. Some of them are pretty cool and actually work, like cigarette buds.

-There were cigarette buds on the ground.
-It was a long and sorted story.
-The tour was a world wind of activity.
-The entertainment was just a guy lip singing
-The staff was rude, case and point, the reception clerk.
-The salad had baking bits on it.

Also, there's lots and lots of abysmally lazy writing. It's amazing how many cold meals, dismal valets and distracted bartenders are described as "a joke." Sometimes in one review, meaning this person has only one single known method of expressing discontent. They end up sounding like "the drinks were a joke and the service was a joke and the jacuzzi was a joke..." YAWN. Don't write in anymore, you SUCK. "To die for" is another expression way overused. That one always bugs me anyway. Your family, your lover or your honor are to die for. Not the Marriott's banana cream pie.

The most fun is the Brits. The Brits, and some of the Aussies, don't seem to believe in little things like paragraphs, capital letters or punctuation of any kind. I have no idea why, but they tend to send in reviews that are essentially one long sentence. The lingo, though, is great. One day I almost emailed a Brit acquaintance of mine to find out if "This hotel is the pants!" meant it was good or bad.

I found an English Slang website that told me what I needed to know: "the pants" means it sucks big time.

I am SO going to start using that.