Great Big Sea - Rant and Roar

An Open Letter to the Incredibly Stupid Girl in my Class:

Literally means that something actually happened. It does not mean the same thing as figuratively. Why do people not understand this small and easy point?

Today, and for the sake of anonymity of those who don’t know the English language, you stated - in class, no less - that “During the last election, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper literally tried to take each other’s kneecaps off.”

Holy crap!! Really?! How on Earth can people say politics is boring?! Where was I when THAT happened? All the news coverage I saw just focused on boring, political stuff, like debates over childcare and Canadian’s role as peacekeepers. This is almost as vicious as figure-skating. Harper apparently hired Tonya Harding as a political advisor. Obviously you follow the news much more closely then I do.

I didn’t realize that a WWE match had broken out, with Harper tag-teaming in The Rock to kick Martin, and an aging Hulk Hogan’s ass. I can just imagine Peter Mansbridge, in a cowboy hate and glitter, screaming into the mike “And now, ladies and gentlemen, wearing red, the Conservative Crippler… PAUUULLLL MARTINN!!!! Sadly, in his last match he broke a hip when trying to wrest control of the Liberal Party from Jean Chretien, who finished him with his signature ‘Golf Club to the Head’.”

Oh. Wait. That didn’t happen. Why? Because they FIGURATIVELY TOOK OFF EACH OTHER’S KNEECAPS you useless mass of organic matter!

If you’re unable to use words with more than one syllable correctly, I have for you a suggestion: don’t. Had you just said “During the last election, PM and SH tried to take each other’s kneecaps off” I would have figured out the pragmatics of the situation without having to resort to the semantics. But because you desperately included an extra word in a misguided and unfortunate attempt to sound intelligent, you made a moronic statement.

Believe me- the rest of the class already knows that you’re about as quick off the mark as a retarded ant. There’s no need to reinforce it. I would suggest shutting up and switching into sociology, where they probably applaud your attempt to craft syntactically gorgeous, but completely imbecile phrases, but that would mean suggesting you still belong in a place of higher learning.

Pass grade ten English, then come back and try again.

Sincerely,

Chris Rivers