Things that annoyed me this week

It's not like it was a bad week, but there were a few things that annoyed me this week.

At work, I've been assisting with a book that's being published by Oxford University Press, and I've been reviewing the edits of a copy editor they hired. I don't think she works for Oxford, but she's been doing the copy editing. I Googled her to see if she was a student intern or something, but she's been editing for decades. Which means she should be much better at it. Some of the edits were good. Most of them were unnecessary. And some of them were just plain wrong. For example, she changed "Joseph Smith's family and their neighbors" to "Joseph Smith's family and its neighbors." Really? Its? I get that "family" is singular, but still. Shouldn't your ear (and your brain) tell you that notional agreement is better than grammatical agreement? Also, I think she thinks you shouldn't split an infinitive. And of all prescriptive rules, that one is the dumbest and most illogical. There were lots of other problems, but you'd probably be bored with all the editing-ese.

(Not being much of a reader, I think the next time someone asks me what my favorite book is, I'll say Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, because it tells me why all those so-called rules are dumb.)

I was also really annoyed with Google this week. They try to help me find things by guessing what I'm thinking, but it's not helpful. I had to do some research on Gibraltar, the British colony on the south of Spain, but many of the search hits included this message: "Missing: Gibraltar." For rills? I can force it by putting the word in quotes, but if I didn't want to include hits about Gibraltar, I wouldn't have put it in the search terms. So frustrating.

It was very rainy. I love rain, although it made me miss out on trail running. But I was really disappointed it didn't snow. I haven't seen it snow in May since 2011, although I know it has snowed in other years. I just haven't personally seen it in four years. I hope it snows this month.

Sometimes people misunderstand what I did scholastically or what I do professionally. My major was English language, the sister department to linguistics. People often think I was an English major. I'm NOT an English major. English majors are people who don't know what to study, or are nerds who love Jane Austen and Doctor Who. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not me. It's gotten better since I decided to say "English linguistics" instead of "English language," but people still don't get it and ask me questions I've heard millions of times. No, I don't want to be a teacher. No, I don't read a lot. (English language is to English as geology is to geography. Which is another thing people confuse, but not as much.)

Another thing that happens is that when I tell people I work for the Church History Department, they think I work for the Family History Department. They used to be the same department, but they're not anymore.

Speaking of geology, I was extremely frustrated to hear a news report that some Utah parents are mad that the state wants to teach evolution and global warming in schools. I mean, I graduated from BYU, the most religious and perhaps most conservative college in the state, and it was there that I learned the factually based science behind those theories. How did the science behind climate change become politically charged? And why is evolution regarded as fundamentally contradictory to religion? And even if it were (which it isn't), why should you forbid something just because it's not what you believe?

Our cat, who is nearly thirteen years old (in human years), likes to bring us dead mice. This proves that she is a useful animal, because it's better to have a dead mouse outside your door than a mouse, dead or alive, in your house. In the past, these mice have been simply dead. Recently, however, they have been horribly mutilated. Today I had to throw a mouse's head away. Its internal organs were left on the step, and I didn't know what to do with them, so I left them there. The flies should take care of it. Gross.

My mom's family came over for Mother's Day, and my cousin Joe told me I had a worm on my neck. I thought he was joking or maybe telling me I needed to shave my neck. So I rubbed my neck in response to what I thought was a joke. Then he told me it was on my hand. And indeed, there was a little inch worm on me!