On flame bait

Counting is easy!
Quality, not quantity
is key in haiku.

Alas, there are those
in our midst who flaunt the rules,
with five-eight-five verse.

Ridicule! Mock them!
And if that fails, deploy the
velociraptors.

He never should have pointed out to me his final-verse foible…

On rude baristas

"A tall mocha, please!"
"Uh, The sizes we have are:
smaaaall, medium, laaaarge."

From Caribou Coffee last night... I don't think the transcribed text of this conversation really does justice to the absolute smug rudeness with which it was delivered. The woman was seriously nasty about what basically equates to a slip of habit. What I should have said was "Well, if you're going to be rude about it, I'll just go somewhere that doesn't mind how I order my coffee! *grin*" instead I was so baffled at her nasty tone that I just kind of blinked and handed her my money.

Sigh.

On Grammatical Structures

Two words: "Also," "Too."
Sometimes interchangeable,
other times - less so.

Examples of when it's ok to swap these words:
-"She was annoyed, too" == "She was annoyed, also"
-"We, too, dislike awkward sentences" == "We, also, dislike awkward sentences" (not to be confused with "We also dislike awkward sentences," where the also implies other things are disliked in addition to the sentences, rather than implying that multiple groups of people dislike the awkward sentences)

Examples of when it's weird to do the switcheroo:
-"And also, remember that it pisses me off" != "And too, remember that it pisses me off" ...I hear people say this or see it typed all the time. It just doesn't work! Rawr!
-"We also dislike kittens and puppies and candy canes" != "We too dislike kittens and puppies and candy canes." Obviously I don't see the one as often, but it clarifies case two from the previous section.

Right. Shutting up.

On Follow-ups

Word, you baffle me!
"Device" is not mis-spell-ed,
nor "Receptacle."

Wait, what's that you say?
You're spell-checking in French now?
Fier Ze Miss-iles!

...why would Word's spell checker randomly be checking in French? Your guess is as good as mine...

On Days of the Week

Why call it hump day?
The median of the week -
must in sound vulgar?

Just a grump, I guess;
unjustified linguistic
blackboard fingernails.

Something about calling Wednesday "hump day" just... rubs me wrong. Makes me go "Yick! WTF!?" Go figure. On the other hand, going to label this post and seeing "space sheep" in the list of labels: high-larious!