Unplugged

Perusing the newspaper, a couple of items caught my eye.

First, on a subject near and dear to my heart -- and probably yours, too: saving money. There was an article incorporating the usual cost-cutting tips, e.g., buying store brands, cutting out Starbucks, shopping the Goodwill, borrowing free DVDs from the library, etc. But these two money-saving measures I had not heard of before: (1) unplugging your home computer when not in use will save you more than $20 a month on your electric bill, and (2) unplugging the chargers for cell phones, music players, and other devices except when in use can save you as much as $10 each per month. I had no idea! As you might imagine, I, the consummate penny-pincher, have now unplugged. Oh, and by the way, I read an online article last week that said lowering the backlight setting on (flat-screen) TV sets would also cut down on electricity use, and I did that as well.

Then, there was something on one of my favorite subjects -- grammar. Apparently, one of the local favorites when it comes to horrible grammar is the misuse of your and you're. As you guys already know, you're good to go with your grammar. Another example of grammar that ticks people off is apostrophe abuse. Since the apostrophe indicates a plural (or a contraction, e.g., whose = who does it belong to? and who's = who is), it makes the grammar purists see red -- and rightfully so -- to see "There were car's on the road," or "The road's were scraped by the snow plow's." And finally, one of the grammar snafus that makes me crazy -- the misuse butchery of myself. It sends me into paroxysms of groaning and snorting when I hear someone say, "Darlene and myself wish you a Merry Christmas." That's the same as saying, "Darlene wishes you a Merry Christmas and myself wishes you a Merry Christmas." Clearly, that sounds ... just wrong. As wrong as "Santa brought my sister and I Barbie dolls." What that actually says is, "Santa brought Sissy a Barbie doll and Santa brought I a Barbie doll." Between you and me, that doesn't sound right, does it?

Lastly, there was a brief update on the strange case of Adam Herrman. Adam Herrman was an 11-year-old boy who disappeared from his Towanda, Kansas, home in 1999. His adoptive parents never reported him missing and, therefore, his disappearance only came to light last week by way of an anonymous tip to police. The parents claim that Adam was a chronic runaway and that they quit bothering to report his disappearances, figuring that he finally reunited with his birth family. But geez, apparently they never bothered to actually attempt to verify that. This case is disturbingly reminiscent of the Caylee Anthony case in Florida, in my opinion. I don't think there was anyone with reasoning abilities who believed the mother's story that 2-year-old Caylee had been kidnapped by a (nonexistent) babysitter but never bothered calling the police, and I believe that only the most naïve didn't believe from Day One that that child was dead at the hands of her pathologically lying mother. In the case of Adam Herrman, the parents are in the hot seat, and with very good reason. There's quite a big difference in failing to report the disappearance of a 17-year-old who's run away before and an 11-year-old. An 11-year-old is a child, incapable of obtaining any kind of employment and taking care of himself away from home. When an 11-year-old fails to come home, you call the police. Period. The fact that they did not puts them under a huge umbrella of suspicion, which is exactly where they belong.

TWISTED LINGUISTICS picked up these suspicious looking blasfomys for you to interrogate and try to figure out. Good luck!

divorse
enclude
eample
grisly bear
hybernation
croneys
sincopation