Fungible

Another “Is it just me?” moment struck today.

“Is it just me” that ‘literally’ no longer ‘means’ literally because it was used wrongly often enough that people accept the wrong definition as the correct one? That’s happened to many other words in my lifetime – replete and decimate come to mind. So, I guess, shrug. I should let it go. It’s history now, but , shrug, damn it.

Like, it also bothers me that people, media, and politicians (because pols and media are not people) will publish or state, “The little boy was found wandering alone, by himself, without his family.” I think they’re being a little redundant, but maybe that’s just me.

The classics of these cases still remain (‘still remain’, instead of just ‘remain’) in active use (can there be inactive use?). “At this point in time, we are currently now pursuing a new course of action.” Jesus, there are a couple unnecessary words in that statement. Or, a favorite, “I was just thinking in my head that we should do that.”

Really? You were thinking it in your head? Gosh, good for you. How did you learn to do that? I usually think in my pelvis.

It’s weird to me because I have, to the best of my knowledge (and whose knowledge would I otherwise use, and why would I use anything but the best of my knowledge?) that I’ve thought in my head my entire life. Therefore, it’s understood, and I don’t need to state where I’ve been thinking.

Is it just me or do I have I been wrong all these years? Do I need to clarify which body part was being used for which function? “I was walking, on my feet, to the store the other day….” “That bread was so hard, I was chewing, in my mouth, for literally hours.”

Okay, so my baseline is someone who growls at things like that. The minutiae others employ bothers me in some logic kernel in my brain. Communities building and developing without regard to water supplies triggers, “Is it just me, or is that stupid?” If not stupid, it seems short-sighted. “Is it just me, or is it ignorant,” to blindly allow fracking and pollute our water supplies and cause temblors and quakes? (Hello, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, I’m smiling at you.)

“Is it just me, or have we put intelligence up our collective asses when we decree that people can’t grow food on their properties because that may adversely affect property values?” Yeah, it’s probably just me. Because, you know (I’m sure you do) food is far less important than property values. If the big one drops (know what I mean?), than we want to have high property values if we’re to survive the aftermath. I know that in many zombie movies, books and television shows, survivors are frequently lamenting, “What are we going to do? These zombies are adversely affecting our property values. If only we’d done more to protect our property values.”

Looking up ‘fungible’ triggered today’s “WTF, it is just me?” outburst. Looking the word up online, Merriam-Webster defines fungible as something that is fungible.

I’m sure I’m displaying the full glory of my tree rings when I vent, “My teachers always told me not to use a word to define it.” What a deft (or is that daft?) definition. I now completely understand that fungible means something that is fungible. Very good. Excellent!

I did like the word of the day, though: asperse. Never heard of that. Of course, dubious of M-W’s definition, I looked it up elsewhere.

Venting completed, I will now, at this point in time, write like an insane, crazy maniac, one more time.