Meet the FNG

Since I'm not the FNG (Friendly New Guy) anymore, meet the new guy: Reason. A self-described "Christian libertarian." I thought I was the only one. And he's showing me up. Seven posts in less than 24 hours.

He hits on a pet peeve of mine. Words mean things. Irregardless, Could care less, i.e./e.g., will/shall, while/whereas, alot, me/myself/I, etc. I forsee a rant coming...

Okay, short rant. Two sentences:

• Bob likes golf more than she.
• Bob likes golf more than her.

Any difference? Actually, yes. Both sentences leave off words.

• Bob likes golf more than she does. (or "...than she likes golf.)
• Bob likes golf more than he likes her.

So, in two sentences, one using the subjective case pronoun (she), one with the objective case pronoun (her), the choice of case makes meaning quite different.

An example of the other pronoun pet peeve of mine is "give the ball to myself." Folks must remember their parents and teachers telling them that it's incorrect to say "it is me." So, they don't like ending sentences with "me." But, "give the ball to I" doesn't sound right, either. So, by golly, they pick the one that's left. Myself. And don't get me started on "functionality." A nice pretty noun: function. But we want an adjective. Okay, functional. But, now we want a noun again. Rather than removing the adjective suffix, let's add another suffix to make a noun. Hmm... how about functionality? (At least it's better than functionalness, I guess.)