o grammar, where art thou

Having complained long and loud in the past regarding the death of grammar in contemporary society as perpetrated by the media, I am not going start again.

I will however vent my feelings on how the lack of clear pronunciation has widely propagated a lot of grammatical errors. Is it just sheer laziness, or lack of understanding how words string together? After all, language is a little more than the ability to sequentially put together grunts and sounds so as to convey some sort of meaning, ever so slightly.

What's wrong with this statement:
If I knew it was wrong, I would of not done it.

I can bet that 3 out of 4 Americans will say that it seems perfectly fine. I would wager that if I showed this following sentence the same 3 of 4 would still think both sentences hold valid.

If I knew it was wrong, I would have not done it.

Once again, I blame the press - grammatical errors are dime a dozen in the printed media, while it appears to no longer be a prerequisite to have half a brain or an understanding of the English language to get a job on television or radio.

Of course, I don't get how blogs like these and that Twitting fandango and user-generated content media like Wiki stopped being communication forms and actually became sources of information - I still have people in the graduate course that I'm doing in project management cite personal blogs as references. Aaargh!

corporatese

I'm taking yet another one of those corporate management classes this semester, and I love the cheat sheet we were given for some commonly used acronyms.. enjoy!

BUPPIE - Black Urban Professional
DIMP - Double Income, Money Problems
DINK - Double Income, No Kids
DINKY - Double Income, No Kids Yet
FLY - Fun Loving Youth
GRAMPIE - Grown Active Moneyed People in Excellent State
GUPPIE - Gay Urban Professional
LIPS - Low Income, Parents Supporting
OINK - One Income, No Kids
OPF - One Parent Family
POSSLQ - Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters
SELPIE - Second Life People
SINBAD - Single Income, No Boyfriend, Abso¬lutely Desperate
SKIPPY - School Kid with Purchasing Power
VIP - Very Important Person
VIPI - Very Important Person Indeed
WASP - White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
WOOPIE - Well-Off Older Person
YUPPIE - Young Urban Professional

exit wounds

there's gotta be more to life than work > study > drink > sleep > work > study > drink > sleep > work..

PMS = Project Management Stress

you wouldn't think i'd be whining already two days into a course.. but i am! this part-time grad school degree is in no way part-time, i think the only way of keeping on top of it is if i have a part-time job, not the over-time thirteenth task of Hercules i am currently wrestling with.. the full degree program is the same length as a full-time class program, but more time-intensive cos everything is summarized and abbreviated into online lectures and notes, which i have to go research and expound on in my own time

my own time.. now that's an oxymoron if i've ever heard one! and soccer season has already started, football season kicks off tomorrow and hockey season is already starting to dust off its skates.. but for all my moaning and groaning, a compromise shall be found.. sleep shall be sacrificed (alas!) at the selfish altar of hedonism, and a Critical Path Analysis will determine the SOW, and the WBS will prevent Scope Creep..

enjoy yourselves folks, football is here!

the key theory in management

i have a theory, that when you are in management, especially at a production facility, the number of keys you are straddled with at your workplace has a direct relationship with where you are and where you are going on the corporate ladder.

lower management - no one trusts you, yet. so you only get the basic keys, outer office, supply room, etc. it will take you a while, or a few promotions to start becoming responsible for more.

middle management - you are becoming a more important cog in the machine, so you carry more keys. there are the master keys to all outer doors, machine operations, training and meeting rooms, records office, etc. an unfortunate fallout of this is that you are expected to be on call much more in case the plant needs to be shut down on vacations and things like that.

upper management - you are back to minimal keys again, as you are not encumbered by carrying big bunches of keys. when you need the keys you can always get someone who works for you to open stuff up, so you are back to carrying a couple of masters, that's it!

the number of keys on my bunch keeps increasing by the week, so i guess i can say i am headed up the slope now.. let's see how far this goes.