Can't stop ranting

Why don't I have a mountain of medicine spoons? Since 2006 when Calpol was first suitable for my boys, I have never consciously thrown out the spoon that comes with medicine. Given how much Calpol we go through, not to mention Calprofen, Benylin (me), Benadryl, antibiotics etc, I figure I should have approximately 100, if not more. I have about 10. Where are the rest of them? I blame the sock gremlins again.

Grammar rant alert: why can't people, whose job it is to talk or write, not learn simple grammar rules? I spend half my time saying "did" to my son when he says that such and such done something. He hears people say "done" and so he repeats it.

So it irks me something rotten when I'm watching television and hear Jane McDonald say "talking don't get tougher than this" to Gregg Wallace, in humorous reference to his infamous "cooking DOESN'T get tougher than this" line on Masterchef. Care, people, care. It's not hard.

And lose doesn't have two o's in it.

I'm not sure about that apostrophe. I care about them too UNLIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T BOTHER. That's not the usual correct use, but without it, the word would be os. Hmm.
See, I think about it. And it's not my job.

Another thing that I wonder about is words that change meaning.

Ignorance: means lack of knowledge; used to mean rudeness. I assume this refers to lack of knowledge of how to behave. But it is constantly used to simply describe inappropriate behaviour. Unless used as an adjective and accompanied by the word "fool", in which case it gloriously refers to lack of knowledge.

Irony: this has been well covered. Ed Byrne notably has a very amusing stand up routine detailing how each scenario in Allanis Morrisette's song "Ironic" isn't ironic.

The Guardian wrote about it many many (9) years ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2003/jun/28/weekend7.weekend2

Yeah. I can't remember the HTML for links. I might fix that later.

Finally, as I've moved from a harmless spoon ponder to an all out attack on the illiteratti, I do wonder about those who give their children wacky names. With a made up name, they are ensuring their child forever gets preconceived ideas about them and called by the wrong name.

Others take regular names and spell them wackily. Not cute. Stupid. My friend knows a Jorja and an Ollyver. Those kids will gain nothing other than the fact that their name will constantly be spelt incorrectly.

My three children have standard issue, traditional names. Two of them are very popular names, one isn't particularly popular any more. I know that many think I'm boring, that they're awful and unimaginative names. I was mocked by someone for my choice for my daughter; her suggestions were off the wall.

My argument is that it isn't an extension of your creativity, it is the name of a person who will grow up and introduce themselves to important people, fill out forms and generally be hassled by having a stupid name. That's not to say unusual names aren't sometimes really nice, I just wish people would stick to names that work as names.

I think I'm done now.

Politics

Everyone in my life seems to fall into one of two camps politically: right-wing Torygraph readers, or punk-reared semi-anarchists. I don't know where I fit. I don't seem to be able to talk to anyone about it without coming across as simply wrong, because I never actually agree with anyone and at some point in any political conversation the other person gets that "you are so naive/stupid/posh" look on their face which makes me feel like an idiot. I don't think I'm bigoted, I support the Euro and I applaud the current government for many of the things they have done. I liked Blair and don't like Brown. I've never voted Tory, probably never will, but I don't think Thatcher was all bad and I think family values are important (assuming your family aren't bigoted twats).

I did the Political Compass and came out as slightly left of centre and in the middle between libertarian and authoritarian (the not being as libertarian thing is where I differ from most people my age). It seems I share a political outlook with Tony Blair, the 1982 Labour Party and Beethoven. That makes it all much clearer.

I think I need to know more, but it is impossible to find out unbiased information. So what now? My heroes are all semi-anarchist or they're embarrassingly right wing. My husband is a semi-anarchist. I can't even copy.

I was going to suggest maybe I needed my own political party that was a bit woolly and unsure, then I remembered we already have the Liberal Democrats.