Irregardless is not a word.  Use “irrespective” or “regardless” instead.

Thank you.

Dear Copy Bitch: My girlfriend says that when I say something like “Irregardless of what you think, I’m really a sensitive guy,” that I’m wrong and the word is “regardless.” Who’s right?

—Betrothed in Sioux City

Answer: Dear Betrothed…in this case, your girlfriend is right, at least regarding the word “irregardless” (Madame Copy Bitch makes no claim about your sensitivity one way or the other). Use “regardless.”

Here’s another phrase that confuses many: “could care less” vs. “couldn’t care less.” The proper use is “couldn’t care less.” For example, “I couldn’t care less about George’s supposed ‘other’ woman.”

This is easy to remember- irregardless is wrong- stop it, stop it, stop it!

-less and ir- both imply negative; you don’t need both.

Despite the fact that countless millions feel the need to use it, irregardless is not a word. I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, and say that you’ve already learned this in numerous spell-check encounters, I’ve seen that this is simply not true.

When someone uses “irregardless,” they almost always just mean regardless. Regardless in itself already signifies a lack of regard, and so adding the “ir” (a Latin prefix “having a negative force” [1]) would create a word that means the opposite of having no regard.

Dictionary.com (not the OED, but it will do), gives the following explanation for irregardless:

an erroneous word that, etymologically, means the exact opposite of what it is used to express, attested in non-standard writing from 1912, probably a blend of irrespectiveand regardless. Perhaps inspired by the double negative used as an emphatic [2].

I guess the moral of this story is: using made-up words in order to sound smart is not helping anyone.

[1] Dictionary.com. “Ir- Definition.” <http://youdonotsoundsmart.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=11>, 2009.

[2] Dictionary.com “Irregardless Definition.” <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irregardless>, 2009.

There’s no such word.

Isn’t that what you hear when one person uses irregardless and another person corrects the first person, saying that the correct word is regardless? Funny thing, though: According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, there is such a word, albeit a not-well-regarded one. Here’s what the online mother of all dictionaries has to say:

Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

Aha! Since Merriam-Webster states that it is, indeed, a real word, doesn’t that give you license to use it?

It's not too cool for fashion, either

Nope. That last line — “Use regardless instead” — stands firm. Although plenty of folks say irregardless, that doesn’t make it correct. The theory of its origin is that irregardless is a fusion of irrespective and regardless. It probably started because someone was trying to sound smart in front of some friends and it just caught on, like a bad trend. Just a guess.

Regardless (ahem) of how it started, it would be very cool of you to use regardless instead. You’ll sound smarter if you do.

Happy trails!

SAK

In a past Monday Medley, we linked to a list of the most beautiful words in the English language. Tyler Cowen lists the words that make him wince based on this article:

“Some contenders:

pulchritude
chillax
hubby
no-brainer
webinar
staycation
any word starting with “mommy”

What can you add to this list?”

I strongly believe that “chillax,” “hubby,” and “staycation” merit a place on this list.  Interestingly, unlike beautiful words list, this list seems to account for meaning and usage too. “Pulchritude” actually sounds pretty bad and ought to sound better, especially given its meaning. However, “hubby”, for instance, often reflects something negative about the person who uses it rather than actually sounding bad. Without further ado, my additions (some of which I think actually sound bad, some of which are used in ways I dislike) with some commentary:

-filmic (…and basically any “in” word for postmodernists)
-drawer (especially when you have a moderate New York accent, this word is VERY difficult to say)
-tummy (cutesy words tend to be annoying)
-preggers (seriously?)
-irregardless (it makes little sense and sounds odd)
-interwebs (this isn’t funny)
-blog (I know. I know. Still, I wish this were called something different. Web log sounds okay, but blog sounds awful)

Any additions?

AAHHHHHHGGGGHHHHHHH!  I can’t take it any longer.

I could care less :  Usually, when one uses this saying, one’s intention is to indicate no care;  no less care can be given because one doesn’t care at all now.  Saying you could care less implies you care a little bit, which contradicts the point one is trying to make.  ” I could care less” just doesn’t get the job done.  It’s “I couldn’t care less”.

I’m nauseous or I feel nauseous : Nauseous means causing or able to cause nausea.  If you say that you’re nauseous, you’re saying that you nauseate others.  If you feel sick and think you may throw up, then you might want to say you are feeling nauseated.

Irregardless and Orientated.  These two are abominations.  I used to be able to say those are not words, but no longer can I make such a claim.  These mispronunciations were used so often that they are actually now in dictionaries.  How sad.  It’s Regardless and Oriented.

Just today, I heard a new one from a friend.  I told my friend I wanted to use this new word in my post but I had to promise I would not divulge my friend’s identity.  The word – interpretate.  Now, I had never heard that one before and when I said interpret, my friend kept adding ate and I kept saying no.  My friend’s head tilted to one side kind of like a puzzled puppy does.  I eventually got through though.

10 times less fat! Wow, that’s quite remarkable when you think about it.  OK, let’s do the math.  Let’s say that a certain popular tasty vanilla cake filled with creamy goodness has 100 grams of fat.  What is 10 times that?  Well, it’s 1000 grams of fat.  So, there are 1000 less grams of fat than the original 100 grams?  C’mon.  How can you have ten times less of anything?  It should be something like a tenth of the fat or 90% less fat or 10% less fat, depending on the math.  I just heard that people are battering them and deep frying them now.  Oh man, no, no, that’s just… well it sounds kind of good actually.

Like, it’s like, and I was all like, and he was like…  Stop it people.  Just stop.  I recently saw an interview of First Lady Michelle Obama; it seemed every other word out of her mouth was “like”.  Some roll model for our young.

I saw a brochure at a massage therapist’s office a few years ago which made a point out of listing people in certain professions that can benefit from massage, as if a list was needed; wouldn’t the shorter list be those that would not benefit from massage?  In an apparent effort to be politically correct and gender neutral, it listed police persons and fire persons.  What ever happened to police officers and fire fighters?  By the way, I hear that the term politically correct is no longer proper; culturally correct is now the phrase we should use to protect everyone’s feelings.  This stuff makes me nauseous; irregardless, I could care less.

Look, I’m not perfect and never claimed to be.  I’m a horrible speller and I can drop participles and end my sentences in prepositions with the best of them.  But these things are just too out there; they really make the speaker sound stupid.  Others that make one look stupid are misuse of  there/their/they’re and to/too/two; there’s three of each folks, look them up, use the correct one.  Also, your vs. you’re and its vs. it’s.

It’s not safety deposit box, it’s safe deposit box.

It’s not by the power invested in me, it’s by the power vested in me.

Very unique.  Stop qualifying unique.  A thing is unique or it’s not.  It can’t be somewhat unique or extremely unique.  It’s just unique.

Four corners of the earth – The earth doesn’t have corners.

He made a complete 360° turnaround.  OK, what are you trying to say there?  If you’re trying to say that he’s back where he started, then alright.  If you’re trying to impart the notion that he is now very different than what he was, then he made a 180° turnaround.

There are plenty more but my head is about to explode, so I’ll give it a rest.

Cheers,
Maggie

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This series is published in the tuesday issues of Deccan Chronicle .

Here are a few mistakes people make when they use certain expressions.

One in the same thing : The correct use would be “one and the same thing.” Meaning, identical with each other.

Could care less: The right use would be “couldn’t care less.” This means that you don’t care anymore.

Once and a while: This should be “once in a while,” which means it could happen every once in a time period.

This will wet your appetite: The spelling here should be ‘whet.’ This means it will sharpen or make your appetite keener.

Other misused words are…

Irregardless: There is no such word — regardless is what you should use.

Alright: Should be spelt ‘all right’.

Here are homonyms (words that sound the same but have different meanings) gone wrong…

Their:  This is the possessive form of ‘they’.
They’re:  means ‘they are’

Other errors:

‘To’ is a preposi- tion, ‘two’ is a number and ‘too’ is an excessive degree.
Similarly, ‘who’s’ is the contraction of who is or who has;
‘whose’ is the possessive form of who;
‘your’ is the possessive form of you and ‘you’ll’ is the contraction for you all;
‘you’re’ is the contraction for you.

My job is fun, have I mentioned that? We get sent an HR newsletter every Monday and it lists people’s anniversaries with the company, this week someone celebrated their 20th anniversary, and my first thought was, “Wow, if I have to work for the rest of my life (providing my husband doesn’t become a celebrity chef and I get to live in the lap of luxury) I might like it to be here.”  That thought partially scared the shit out of me, and partially made me smile because it says one of two things about me; a) I’m a lazy bum who has no aspirations, or b) this place is awesome and the opportunities could be endless (amidst the ridiclous disfuntionality of this place (is disfunctionality a word? it is now if it wasn’t before)).  I’m hoping it’s the latter.

Regardless (useless tangent here; I was watching Uncle Phil last night – Dr. Phil to those of you who aren’t as close to him as I am – and some guy on the show said “irregardless” and I wanted to jump through the screen and shoot him directly in the face. IRREGARDLESS SIR? REALLY? KILL YOURSELF. Additional usless tangent; yes I watch Uncle Phil, and yes I’m aware that he is a useless retard giving advice to even more useless retarded people, but it’s my one mindless indulgence). 

Okay, so, regardless, this post started because there was an epic battle between my coworker and I over the item shown below.

You spotted it, Grey Goose VIP access pass to a party on the water, in actuality I didn’t want the  pass at all because we get invited to these “forced fun” events every day, but I thoroughly enjoyed the warfare that went on in order to keep it from my coworker. 

None of this had anything to do with why I started this post, but it’s my stupid blog so I can post stupid posts up the yin yang and anyone who has a problem with that can suck it.

Except no one reads this. thank god.

Word: histrionic [his-tree-on-ik] adj. 1. of or pertaining to actors or acting 2. deliberately affected or self-consciously emotional; overly dramatic, in behavior or speech

Birthday: Charles Baudelaire (1821), Hugh Hefner (1926), Tom Lehrer (1928), Jim Fowler (1932), Carl Perkins (1932), Marty Kroft (1937), Peter Gammons (1945), Dennis Quaid (1954), Marc Jacobs (1963), Paulina Porizkova (1965), Jenna Jameson (1974), Albert Hammond, Jr. (1979), Keshia Knight Pulliam (1979), Jesse McCartney (1987)

Occurrence: 2003 – Saddam Hussein’s statue is toppled to the ground and destroyed by the Iraqi people as U.S. forces take over Baghdad. That was six years ago. When, exactly, did we win that war?

Standpoint: A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about sayings or phrases that I find annoying. Since then, I’ve received emails and comments, both here and on Facebook, from all of you who wanted to share your annoying sayings. I found that what really bother some of you are frequently misused words. I picked the top three and did a little research. Here is that I found:

“irregardless” vs. “regardless” – “Irregardless” is not a word. At least, not an accepted one. According to dictionary.com, “Irregardless” is a non-standard word because of the two negative elements ir- and –less. The site presumes that “those who use it, including on occasion educated speakers, may do so from a desire to add emphasis.” On the other hand, “regardless” means, “having or showing no regard.”  The winner: regardless

“supposably” vs. “supposedly” – This one is going to disappoint some of you. Dictionary.com says both are fine. “Supposably” is defined as “to believe or assume as true; take for granted.” “Supposedly” is defined as “assumed as true, regardless of fact.” I don’t really see a difference, do you? The winner: it’s a tie

“orientate” vs. “orient” – “Orientate” is actually a word. It means, “to arrange in order; to dispose or place (a body) so as to show its relation to other bodies.” (No, I don’t think that means an actual human body.) “Orient” has many different meanings, including one that resembles the above one for “orientate.” However, the one that fits with the way most people use both these words is “to familiarize (a person) with new surroundings or circumstances.” So when someone says, “I had to orientate him into the new apartment,” they’re misusing the word. The winner: orient

So, there you go. I still can’t believe that “supposably” is a word. Thanks everyone for your contributions.

Quotation: It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. – Albert Einstein

Tune: Over the weekend, I was having a conversation with a certain someone who insisted that all bands would choose making the big time over being a consistently working, moderately profitable one. I disagreed. Example of one such band? Cloud Cult. Here’s a blurb from the band’s official bio: “Despite offers from major labels, Cloud Cult has chosen to remain independent, recording and releasing their albums through Earthology Records, a not-for-profit environmental record label established by Minowa in 1998. On a self-funded shoe-string budget they have achieved top 20 CMJ radio charting for all of their last three albums, a domain usually reserved for the SubPops and Merges of the world.” My favorite Cloud Cult tune is “Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide.”

Link: Lights – Not sure if I’ve posted this before, but wanted to share it. Takes a few seconds to figure out.

Gallimaufry: Everyone’s talking about the Philadelphia Phillies’ new World Champions rings. Reviews have been good. I even overheard on lady call them “stunning.” I think the rings are pretty god-awful but I’d probably wear one if I’d just won the World Series. A shame they can’t present the team with the rings every night. The Phillies won in impressive style, coming back late in the game to win 12-11 after being down 10-3 (Thanks to Phinally Philly for the link)…Iron Man 2 began filming recently. Looks like Iron Man cast members Robert Downey, Jr. (Tony Stark), Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts) and Samuel L. Jackson (Col. Nick Fury) will return for the second installment while Don Cheadle will replace Terrence Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes. New cast members will include Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Mickey Rourke (Whiplash) and Sam Rockwell (Justin Hammer). It’s rumored that there will be appearances by Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins but nothing solid yet…Think status updates on Facebook and tweets on Twitter are getting impossible to follow? If so, you’re not going to like where Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove is predicting for the future in “A Brief History of the Status Update.” Personally, I think it’ll be great.

Incoming: Tomorrow – My “Top 3 Incredibly Cool Things To Do in Philadelphia This Weekend” and some other amazing stuff.

After sitting through a painful seminar at work yesterday where the speaker had little to no grasp of proper grammar and pronunciation, I’ve decided to share with you the top 5 mispronunciations that make my head spin.

1. Expecially (instead of especially)
There is no X.  I promise you.  Quit saying it like there is.

2. Irregardless
I learned this was wrong in elementary school with the Daily Oral Language exercises.  How can people still be saying this?

3. Orientate/Disorientated (rather than the proper usage of orient/disoriented)
This little gem is what inspired this post.  I sat through a training yesterday where the speaker used this word a minimum of ten times.  I think by the end I was visibly wincing when she’d say it.

4. Ath-a-lete(adding an unnecessary syllable to athlete)
Just unnecessary.  And irritating.

5. Visa-versa (as apposed to vice-versa, the proper pronunciation of the Latin-based phrase)
No explanation needed.

The other day, a good friend’s brother inquired about that oft-used oddity “irregardless.”  It wasn’t the spelling that bothered him, oh no.  His quandary was aligned more closely with what can only be rightly classified as “WTF?!” 

My hardbound, love of my life, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Tenth Edition, mind you) tells me that “irregardless” is a word; more than likely, the bastard child of “regardless” and “irrespective.”  It is, apparently, an adverb that means, wait for it, “regardless.”

Huh.

Microsoft Word’s Spell Check, on the other hand, informs me that I have an imposter, by way of an angry, red, squiggly line.  The plot thickens further, though, when I test the cyber sister of M-W, only to discover yet again, that ”irregardless” is an adverb, but one that “is still a long way from general acceptance.”  Furthermore, m-w.com admonishes “Use regardless instead.”

So which is it?  All you Latin Lovers out there should be in an uproar.  “Ir”, as we all know, or pretend to know, is the great undo-er.  Irresponsible, irregular, irreverent, irrelevant.  The previously mentioned and oft-quoted love directs me to “In” when I inquire about “Ir” and upon a page-flip I learn that as a prefix, “ir,” “in,” “il,” or “im” come from the Latin and mean “not, non, or un.”  That’s undo, undo, undo to you.

In other words, “irregardless” is a word.  Unless, well, it’s not.

Let’s start this thing off cheesily (even though I’m reading a book on grammar, I can still make up words like “cheesily”). I am thankful for the book Woe Is I. Not only am I thankful for this book feeding my inner grammar nerd, but I’m also thankful that it’s making me less of a grammar snob. There are so many grammar rules that it is unbelievable. Woe Is I is page after page of grammar rules, there is no way anyone can know all of these. The author, Patricia O’Conner, must be the only human on the planet with a complete grasp on the English language. A week ago I cringed whenever someone used then instead of than, or used it’s when they should have used its, or said anyways instead of anyway. However, now I realize that although I have these rules down, there are a million and one that I don’t know. Look at me, I’m growing and progressing. This book a week thing is making me a better person. Okay, that’s not true. I’m still going to judge people when they use it’s instead of its, now I’ll just judge myself as well.

Okay, here are some interesting things I’ve learned over the past few days.

• Restauranteur is not a word. Am I the only person that didn’t know this? The word is actually restaurateur.
• Irregardless is not a word. What the? The word is just regardless. Again, am I the only one that didn’t know this? When I googled “irregardless” the first result said, “an erroneous redundancy for regardless.” Crap, I must’ve been the only person that didn’t know. (Darn it, I just broke a rule. According to Woe Is I I’m not supposed to say “must’ve”.) (Darn it again. Quotes, period, and parenthesis. I don’t know what the crap goes where.)
• A dash is different than a hyphen.

Anyway, if it wasn’t already obvious, there’s a lot I don’t know. However, at least I have this book to tell me how much I don’t know. Normally I just have my friends to tell me that.

The Brothers Bloom is the new film by Brick director Rian Johnson. It stars Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel Weisz. The proper response is excitement.

It looks like it’s gonna be just swell, irregardless of the fact that the plot happens to be just like that of all other heist films ever made ever. It must be all the quirk. Via Videogum.

Evan pointed me to Esquire’s list of 75 skills every man should possess this morning.  Pretty good stuff and I am please to say that I think I score well on the list.  I have some more recommended skills which, while not all are vital to manliness, certainly won’t hurt you in the long run.

• The ability to remain calm and take charge in case of a zombie outbreak.
• A deep resentment, if not utter loathing, for self aware robots.
• The ability to remove a beer bottle cap with your wedding ring, belt buckle, and/or eye socket (this one is for you Wes Tucker).
• Besides being able to cook bacon, one should have an undying and unconditional love of the salty pork flesh.  This means even as you go into cardiac arrest due to all the bacon drippings you’ve consumed in your life you still desire to have a greasy bacon cheeseburger.
• The know how to head-butt somebody like you mean it. Think Zinedine Zidane!
• A deep respect for (and secret longing to be) either a cowboy, a ninja, a pirate, a space ranger, or all of the above.
• One secret nerdy obsession that, regardless of how tough and manly you might be, you just can’t help geeking out to every once and awhile (personally I think the fact that I have several nerdy obsessions and most are not all that secret is really affecting my optimal manly performance — that and my damnable lack of awesome facial hair).
• Upholding the grammatical acceptance of irregardless, irregardless of the fact that regardless is the more proper English term.
• Ending an argument by telling somebody that their “face is stupid.”  (Then head-butting them in the chest just for good measure).
• Along the same lines as the last one (but different).  Accepting an honorable defeat.  Sometimes you just can’t win and in such situations don’t be an ass or a poor loser just accept defeat, shake hands, and get on with life.
• Be able to attend a generally unmanly event or activity and don’t let it bother you and or challenge your sense of manliness.  This one should have been a given on the Esquire list.  There are hundreds of places where this can come in handy and, in the long run, really impress the ladies.
• Come to grips with mortality and fear of death.  I say this in all earnestness and not to be morbid or a downer.  Everybody is going to die someday and this can be a very frightful thought.  Every once and awhile, not all too often, remind yourself of your mortality and accept it.  Mortality isn’t something you are going to change.  Don’t let it bring you down.  Just let it be a reality.  Once you’ve done this (I’d say maybe once every week or every other week) go and enjoy life a little bit more knowing that it is what you’ve and it’s finite.

I think that is all I got for now.  Throw me anything y’all out there have too.

Note: I don’t add to the Esquire list or enjoy it because I am a chauvinist in any way.  Some of the things on the list can be considered just general skills for well rounded people regardless (irregardless) of gender.  Women likely also would be able to make up a pretty good list for there own gender.  There is nothing wrong with being either manly or womanly as long as you aren’t a sexist in the process.  Realizing that is part of being a well rounded person.

My friend Tim blogged a while back in defense of the word “irregardless.” I guess the folks at Merriam-Webster’s stumbled across it and blogged in their own defense in November.

This raises a few points:

1. Why don’t people ever get sarcasm, hyperbole, or just plain goofy jokes on the Internet?
2. Why did M-W quote from their usage guide instead of their much more common dictionary, which says basically the same thing? And did they miss Tim’s point 3?
3. Why didn’t M-W use the word “irregardless” in the title of the post? Have they never heard of SEO? This is 2007, people.

Completely irrelevant P.S. My dad wanted a dictionary that “has all the words” for Christmas. I recommended M-W’s Collegiate 11th, but my mom bought the Random House Webster’s Unabridged. I was about to geek out on her about dictionaries, but decided it wasn’t in the spirit of Christmas to tell my 73-year-old Mom that maybe she should return a 30-lb. Christmas gift for a 30-lb. Christmas gift that looks exactly the same but is from a different publisher.

Oh, and that was the second unabridged dictionary given by and to a family member at Christmas.

i wish i wish i wish

i had my new cell phone handy to capture Maybel’s little prank. It may also have served as the last footage of her happy life on earth.

Let me preface with a separate story. As I got in the car last night, Seth informed me that he received a call from a collection agency RE: a $700 bill from Colombia Gas of Ohio.

It seems that despite calls we made informing CG of O of our pending move and our need to shut off service at 59 East Arcadia Avenue, a gas employee never was “let into” our apartment to walk down to the basement to shut off the service. The unfortunate circumstance here is that NO ONE EVER CALLED US TO TELL US THAT WE WERE PAYING TO HEAT AN VACANT APARTMENT FOR MORE THAN A YEAR. OF course, they claim to have sent repeated notices to the house that stopped paying its gas bill, but we never received those notices.

They did not shut off the gas until May of this year. We moved and called them to shut off the service in May of 2006.

I am so full of rage typing this right now that I can’t see straight.

The C*N**U*K*R customer service rep who talked to me on the phone informed me that because my name was on the bill, I was responsible for the charges — not the property owner — IRregardless of the fact (YES! SHE SAID IRREGARDLESS!!!) that the dumb a-holes put the meter in the basement instead of outside where they are supposed to exist.

It seems they had no problem offering the courtesy of a phone call once we had racked up a $700 bill.

SO.

MAD.

The woman basically hung up on me and would not answer me when I asked repeatedly whether there was a method to contest charges. The saddest, most maddening thing about this is that Colombia Gas did this to us the last time we moved into a new apartment, and ended up charging us for service in both places.

If you deface or steal any property that you later find to belong to Columbia Gas of Ohio, please contact me so I can come over and pee on it.

I’m not sure what will happen with this $700 charge, but I will contest it until the day I die. (Which, from what I’ve heard from other people, is the most likely scenario) F**KST*CKS!

Anyway, so after that delightful conversation, I get home, walk upstairs and find Maybel the Pig hunkered down in the closet, surrounded by a large pile of taffeta and pearly, lacey sorts of materials. Maybel had pulled my wedding dress down from the closet, shredded the garment bag and peed all over my dress, a.k.a., her new nest. She also had jumped on the bed and peed all over the comforter — soaking everything down to the mattress.

Damn teenagers.

The Pig-Pig eats my wedding photos and the Pig-Dog takes a giant piss on my wedding gown? WTF, animal kingdom?

Poor JWray innocently shared a heartwarming story about a farm she visited in New York, maybe like this one, where they rescue factory farm animals– which means they remove them from the hands of some idiot farmer or farmer hand or other non sequitur – and take them to a different farm where they can live out their days, walking over to licking Jaydub’s hands with their slightly maimed leg or beaks. They die of old age.

I am having trouble reconciling two truths in my head: Compassion is great and should be nurtured and encouraged. But cows make lousy pets! As for 300-pound pigs — they’re even worse at it. I mean, you can ride them, but barely.

I am torn. I already know how the animal kingdom feels about me (see related story above). I need to make up my mind how I feel about them.

I will never, ever defend someone who is an a-hole to animals. But I think that they are mainly here to serve us, but we need to appreciate them more than we do. God didn’t ask for all those slaughtered lambs for no reason. Killing an animal is a sacrifice, and I’m uncomfortable with the way they line them up and shoot them in the head on a conveyer belt.

However, I do not feel bad for killing our pig. In fact, I feel slightly better when I’m eating my pig than when I’m eating store-bought pig. I know that pig had short, happy life and died an appropriate, timely death. He served his purpose and I believe that whoever made me and Seth and Maybel and the Pig would agree it was an honorable process. Kill and eat. etc.

Ok, fine.

In other words, if Maybel wasn’t such a dynamite cuddler, I would eat her, and I wouldn’t feel bad about it. Also, I’m starting a Rescue Orphan Farm. We’ll start with some of those cleft pallet kids.

Maybe JWray can offer some advice?*

*about my reconciliation. not about acquiring children with cleft pallet.