Sunday, August 30, 2009

My Pet Peeves: "For All Intensive Purposes..."


This was the first image to come up on a Google image search of "for all intensive purposes." I guess the phrase made the dude who posted it sooooooo mad he had to snap a pencil!


I was reminded of this pet peeve the other day while watching the local news at 5 o'clock. I can't remember the particular story, it wasn't all that interesting. What stuck with me was the contributing TV personality's use of the phrase "For all intensive purposes."

Maybe I'm overreacting but this one pisses me off so much. Like a really lot. But don't worry. I'm not going to snap any pencils in two. Your pencils are safe. I guess because I studied writing and communications for many, many moons I'm particularly sensitive to this. That phrase is 100% incorrect. The correct phrase is "For all intents and purposes."

When you say "intensive purposes" you are referring to purposes you may have that are particularly intense, which makes no fucking sense at all.

I think what made me so mad when I heard this was that it was coming from a trained journalist. This is someone who has studied the English language and the various ways to use it to convey information. He should know better.

If you have used the incorrect phrase in the past, don't worry. Just fix that shit now and never use it again. Its the only way you can be assured of escaping the grammar police, of which I am now the Commissioner. If you use it in front of me I might yell at you or laugh at you because I am an elitist prick with a useless liberal arts degree.

That is all.

6 comments:

  1. I can't stand "Beware of the dog." It should just be "Beware the dog." "Beware" means "be aware of," so the popular use of the phrase is saying "be aware of of the dog."

    ReplyDelete
  2. But this is coming from the guy who up until age 13 or so thought "volleyball" was "ballyball"...

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is correct, Randy. Its just a dumb little joke I like to toss in from time to time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree. Also, I have often seen people say or write "case and point" instead of "case in point" and it drives me nuts!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't like when people use "....... ON ROIDS" or this is not YOUR GRANDPA's JAMES BOND!!

    But luckily with my ADD, I barely hear use annoying little phares.

    ReplyDelete