Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Use the (expletive deleted) Correct Vocabulary. (expletive deleted)

I was at Briarwood Mall the other day, and as I was leaving, I approached the bank of doors -

Door (n.)

  1. a moveable, usually solid, barrier for opening and closing an entranceway, cupboard, cabinet, or the like, commonly turning on hinges or sliding in grooves
  2. a doorway
  3. the building, house, etc., to which a door belongs
  4. any means of approach, admittance, or access
  5. any gateway marking an entrance or exit from one place or state to another*
On these movable, solid barriers which are supposed to turn on hinges at a light touch and allow passage into the great outdoors** were 8" x 11" sheets of white paper on which were crudely handwritten: "Machine

Machine: (n.)

  1. an apparatus consisting of interrelated parts with separate functions, used in the performance of some kind of work.
  2. a mechanical apparatus or contrivance; mechanism.
Out of Order."

I blithely walked right to the door, my hand extended before me to swing the door open on the aforementioned hinges, and it stuck. A girl dressed entirely in black clothing walked by and said: "It's out of order."

And I, dear reader, was mad. I was angry. I was enraged. (Which is slightly ridiculous, but that's another story...)

When you see "machine out of order," you're generally expecting a credit card machine or an ATM or something with buttons that at least makes blooping sounds, and possibly speaks in a robotic monotone. Not a door.

So please, use the correct vocabulary, lest you turn a normally gentle writer into a vicious little animal who will point out your stupidity on her blog. With twenty followers.

*All definitions are courtesy of Dictionary.com. & laziness

**Commonly referred to as a "parking lot."

No comments: