I trust all of you well-informed readers of my blog are aware that today, your friend and mine, Stanley "Tookie" Williams was put to death. Even those of you who read nothing more than People magazine should be aware of this incident. Such cultural giants as Snoop Dogg, Jamie Foxx and others who have animal last names with double final letters have made this a huge media issue. And well they should. By giving the drip to the crip we have put to death a man who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (take that Switzerland!) as a powerful anti-gang advocate. And yet for all of his children's literature (he was basically the hip-hop Dr. Seuss) he never fessed up to actually killing anyone. As if the founder of one of the most violent gangs in American history would ever need to kill anyone. And to make this story even more intriguing, his final fate was decided by a man best known for his title roles in the "Terminator" films.
Basically the point of this blog is thus: Irregardless of your personal opinion on whether Tookie deserved clemency or not, this certainly provided one hell of a news story!
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Tookie
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7 comments:
"Irregardless" isn't a word.
Actually, it is. This is taken from Merriam-Webster's online dictionary:
Main Entry: ir·re·gard·less
Pronunciation: "ir-i-'gärd-l&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: probably blend of irrespective and regardless
nonstandard : REGARDLESS
usage 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.
Well, if I was big and black, which I am, and was in prison, which I isn't, I would also have a big afro like him. So in conclusion, I don't know enough about tookie to know if he deserved the death penalty, but I do know that Arnold is big and white.
i'm rather pissed off about this. this just goes on to prove how sick and wrong capital punishment is.
Don:
You left off the last sentence from that Merriam-Webster entry: " Use regardless instead." In case there is confusion about the formatting of that entry, irregardless is the "nonstandard" word, and regardless is the definition of that word. I think the American Heritage dictionary makes the point clearly: "Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so."
Loyd:
I don't get it.
Your post makes the point for me. A blog is clearly "casual writing".
Dang. Foiled again.
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