I have discovered that there is a much greater issue with newspapers than who writes for them, or what story they “scoop” before the other guys.  It’s all in the delivery…

I have to say that a great newspaper understands that sometimes it rains, and they know it is important to double bag the paper on a rainy day. The paper must go in one bag first, then the other bag in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, the lesser quality newspapers seem to feel that one bag is enough, or even worse, don’t bag at all.  I don’t know where they live, but my driveway is sloped (just for the purpose of draining rain water to the street), and when there’s a single bag, the paper is always wet and worthless.

I refuse to accept that “Ginormous” is a word. I know Merriam-Webster added it to their dictionary in 2007, but it still sounds comical. In my book, it’s still not a real word.

What makes it so utterly absurd is that it is the combination of two words — gigantic and enormous — which basically have the exact same definition as the resulting new word. What is the point?

It’s a fairly sad commentary on the state of our language and society that we have resorted to smashing together existing words in an attempt to derive new synonyms, rather than using the wide variety of perfectly good alternatives anyone could find in a good thesaurus. Or perhaps that is the problem? How many people actually own a thesaurus these days?  [Well, there's always Thesaurus.com, but I doubt those enamored with the word "ginormous" bother with that either.]

As a case in point, to name a few, here are some synonyms one could use instead:

colossal, enormous, gargantuan, gigantic, huge, humongous, immeasurable, immense, jumbo, mammoth, massive, monstrous, mountainous, prodigious, stupendous, super-colossal, titanic, tremendous

The very fact that ginormous sounds like a word crafted by a tween sometime in the last decade should automatically disqualify it from inclusion in our dictionaries.  According to Merriam-Webster, it dates back to 1948, although references to its usage in print and literature do not seem to date back quite as far. The New York Times, on the other hand, calls it a neologism — a newly created word. Whatever the case of its history may be, I still don’t see it as a word my grandparents’ generation would have included in their conversations. It’s really only relatively recently that it seems to have gained popularity. However, I don’t know if that helps bolster this nonsensical word’s validity. More likely it provides further evidence of the dumbing down of our culture.

So does inclusion in a dictionary legitimize a word? I don’t think so. In the end society really makes the call on that one. But, if it was society that invented this moronic word, that doesn’t give me hope about our linguistic future.

And then, while watching the news the other day, I was amazed and horrified as the anchor described something as ginormous. He sounded ridiculous, and certainly far from authoritative and professional as we’d expect the news to at least pretend to be.  I guess my response would have been more appropriate if I had said “W.T.F.”, but in case you don’t realize, I don’t like to be that brief.

Bluetooth is great. I love using a headset without wires. Better yet, the built-in bluetooth system in my car is very, very slick. But what I just can’t understand is why so many people insist on wearing their bluetooth headsets all the time, as if it were some sort of fashion statement.

I’m sorry, but wearing that stupid headset does not make you look more important, no matter what you think when you look in the mirror. In fact, when you’re not on a phone call, wearing the headset makes you look like a complete idiot.

The other day I was in a restaurant and a man walked in wearing his Bluetooth headset. He never took it off and wore it throughout his entire meal. However, it was worse than just that…it continued to blink its very bright, very annoying blue LED status indicator the entire time. It wasn’t bad enough that he looked like a dork, but he needed a beacon to alert everyone of his presence.

Besides, for the most part, none of them are comfortable enough to wear all the time, so why would you want to do that anyway?

When you’re wearing a polo shirt (or a golf shirt or tennis shirt, if you prefer to call it that), please do NOT button the top button,  especially if it fits tight against your neck. True, there may be some specially-styled shirts which are purposely designed to look good with the top button closed, but for most shirts that’s not the case. By the way, this also holds true for a dress shirt (also known as a button-up, button-down or button-front shirt), when you’re not wearing a tie.

The button is really only there for two purposes: (1) To allow the shirt to hang properly on a hanger, and (2) to allow the collar to be fully closed when it is worn with a tie.

Since you’re not wearing a polo shirt with a tie (we certainly hope not), and we assume you’ve removed the hanger from the shirt before putting it on, leave that damn top button open.

Seriously, it just makes no sense to button it, and it makes you look like a complete dork.

Although I haven’t actually calculated it, I’d guess about 50% of the time when I receive change from a cashier they hand me the bills then attempt to place any coins carefully on top of the bills. Excuse me, but what’s wrong with these people?

You would think that as they watched some of the coins slip off and fall to the floor they just might realize it would be so much easier to put the coins in my hand first, and then the bills. You would think this is something they would eventually learn. Sadly, I don’t think they ever will.

In addition, placing the coins on top of the bills virtually guarantees that I’ll need two hands to put away my change. If I’m holding bills in one hand and balancing coins on top of them, how am I supposed to put them away like that? Especially if I’ve got a hot cup of coffee in the other hand?

It’s simple: when giving change you should ALWAYS give the coins first, then the bills.