English Motherf--ker, Do You Speak it?!
By: Pete Phillips
July 18, 2003
9:54 PM

Wilkes-Barre is not a stupid town according to statistics provided by the city itself, but I think they rely on employment statistics--many people work here in the city, but few live here. Assuming these statistics are true it would astound any half-assed English major to tour the city and see the gross misuse of the language we called English at one time--now it's been shifted to American, a word that is internationally synonymous with stupid these days (or maybe just in Europe). I'm withholding any particular business names in order to save their image, which they may as well not care about anyway, what with the fact they're parading stupidity outside their doors.

Exhibit A:
This is a picture that greets you only miles from the interstate, and it makes you wonder about the town you're coming right into. Aside from the fact that the company is endorsing prejudices about the Asian population by way of the image of "Confucius," they butchered the chance to piss off Asians by being unable to speak English! Where's the problem kids? Ms. Sweeny's summer sessions should know the answer from their weekly grammar tests... Yep! That's it. SAY'S. This is a blatant display of stupidity because it's impossible--impossible--to ever have "say" be a possessive noun. Why? Because it's a verb! "Bob's dog." OK. "Pete's website" GOOD. "Swim's water." NO! Bad! Verbs can't have things. I figured everyone knew this, and maybe it was another reason that would make one use an apostrophe S, but the only other reason is "is." "Say" and "is"-- next to each other-- like an unholy union of words that shouldn't find themselves together ever. I got to thinking, would these words ever be acceptable next to each other? I didn't think they could be. "Say" is a verb and "is" is a verb, so two verbs next to each other seems redundant and confusing. "They are walk across a bridge." Nope, that's wrong--then I realized that there is a time when "say" and "is" can come together--when I train radio kids, for example, I say, "What you say is, 'Thank you for listening to WRKC, 88.5, Radio King's College." I'm not even 100% sure that's acceptable either.

Exhibit B:
This is weak, but it was brought to my attention by my sister upon her visit to the ol' W-B. First, is 1,000 adult video tapes impressive? I'm not sure. The place does look pretty small. Moving along though, look at this neon sign. Why would you put 1000 in quotations. Also, assuming you're paying for a neon sign, why use the comma in the number? I can let that slide, but the quotes must be explained. One rider in the car, Vanessa, said that some are probably rentals, which seemed like some reasonable reply, but it's not. Even if some are rentals, why quotes? Will it look less impressive without quotes? Will someone come in and count each video, then sue the place if they're short of a thousand? It's just mindless dribble in neon lights. The most sensible conclusion I've drawn is that there could be 1000 tapes, but only, say 100 titles, so you can get up to five copies of "The Very Best of Jenna Jameson," but then you'd buy out their whole stock. Does this seem logical? Why do I let this get to me anyway? Why the hell not?!

If you've seen 28 Days Later..., the movie about a virus called rage that spread throughout the British island like wildfire, then you need to know that stupidity is spreading faster than that. Watch your back.