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 Wethers, Withers, Whatever Friday, Jun 29th, 2007
Sometimes I fear for the future of the both the American English language and the meat goat industry.

Watching a television news segment about a group of our troops in Iraq I heard (not herd) that they were removing bad guys from an "8 square block area" of Bacuba.

'Scuse me... There is no possible way that a group of blocks can be described as "8 square blocks". That would be something like 2.828427125 blocks on a side.
Did the trusty reporter mean "8 blocks square"? That'd be 8 blocks on a side - 64 square blocks.

And how about the medicine that smokers are supposed to ask their physicians about. It ends in "...eva", like a lot of them do.
It's for "COPD" (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and they say "...which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema". Bronchitis is, in fact, an obstructive pulmonary disease. Emphysema is primarily a CRLD - chronic RESTRICTIVE lung disease (except in the United Kingdom - the advertiser's legal loophole). It only becomes obstructive in its end stages when the collapsed alveoli secrete fluid which becomes trapped in the bronchioles and air that gets into them is hard to breath out.
Explaining the differences between COPD and CRLD would involve an awful lot of Latin-based technical/medical words... suffice it to say that I spent 15 years of my life as a U S Government Pulmonary Specialist so I know the difference.
My question... Why are companies allowed to prompt the US public to ask their doctor for a certain medication based on incorrect or misleading advertising? For that matter, why the heck are prescription drugs advertised to the public anyway?

OK... to the meat of this blog.

How about "an own son of..."? Folks use it to describe an offspring of a particular buck but I don't know what they mean by "own". Is it that they own the goat? Or the sire? Or both? Or is it that the buck in question is the offspring of the named buck. If that's the case then isn't "own" a bit redundant? I can find nothing to support such phrasing on the Internet.

There are several Boer goat breeders (and ex-breeders, according to their latest "dispersal" sales) that are unable to vocalize or write the difference between castrated goats and a part of the back of a livestock animal.
Wethers - male goats that have been castrated.
Withers - the area between the neck and the 1st rib.

OK, here's another one... sale vs. sell.
Using "sale" - "I'm going to have a sale" is correct.
Using "sell" - "I'm going to sell some goats", not "I'm going to sale some goats".

I do not normally edit articles submitted to BoerGoats.com - what I see as an error may be the result of the writer's style instead of a product of educational deficiencies. I find word "errors" useful when writing in my "Southern Fried" persona.

"He was real pacific". Uh, do you mean that he's large and wet, covering all the area between San Diego and Brisbane?

"Bailing hay" - bailing = to clear water by dipping or throwing; baling = to make into a bale. Unless you were clearing hay from a truck bed by throwing it into the loft in which case you'd be "bailing the bales".

"Am I doomed to distinction already?" Not unless you have a terminal case of humble.

then (moment in time) vs. than (contrast with)

The phrase "And also" equates to "and and" or "also also".

"ATM machine" equates to "Automated Teller Machine machine."

"...with baited breath" - Although the odor of the fried chicken you just ate may be irresistible "bait" to your beloved, the proper expression is "bated breath." "Bated" here means held or abated.

"Bear with me" - a request for forbearance or patience.
"Bare with me" - an invitation to undress.

"Copyright" vs. "Copywrite" - you should be retaining the rights to your copy, not writing your copy.

"Dying of goats is prohibited." Duh... Ya' think so? Who wants a bunch of dead goats at a show, anyway? Changing the goat's color is "dyeing".

The word "irregardless" is a redundancy. The suffix "-less" on the end of the word already makes the word negative. It doesn’t need the negative prefix "ir-" added to make it even more negative.

"it's" vs. "its" - the first is a contraction of "it is" or "it has". The second is one of the few exceptions to the rule that one should use an apostrophe "s" to indicate possession.

"calm, cool and collective". No comment.

I just realized... this list could go on forever and ever (grin)!

And you wonder why I fear for the future of the meat goat industry and of the American language...

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