Thursday, August 28, 2008

yes, I am a prescriptivist

So, I was watching some TiVoed Olympic coverage just now, and I heard something truly terrifying. According to the commentator, one of the divers "literally fell apart in the semifinals."

Really? That's horrifying! Was it like spontaneous combustion or something? Were little pieces falling off as he walked until there was nothing left of him? Did he explode upon impact with the pool?

I can't believe these wasn't more news coverage about this.


In other news, I learned from watching the Olympics that I apparently live in abject poverty. According to one commentator, one of the athletes was so poor for a while that he didn't even own an ice machine, if you can imagine that. I guess that means I've been poor my entire life.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

An ice machine. Ah-huh.

Meg said...

I missed the shattering Olympic diver and I can't believe I didn't hear anything of it either!

Crutches said...

In the true Olympic spirit of competition and nationalism, the other divers kept on going and pretended not to notice all the spare limbs floating around in the pool. It was really quite inspiring.

Another scintillating moment in Olympic sports color-commenting was when we were informed that to win a medal the US women gymnasts would "have to do a good job and not fall off the apartus." I was greatful that someone was there to tell me what it would take.

Cindy said...

Yep, gotta love Olympic commentators. I liked the really helpful ones too. "To have a chance at winning the equestrian competition, he'll have to avoid falling down, make clean jumps, and finish under the time limit." Really? And then we got the same basic explanation about every 15 minutes.

kathy said...

good thing i'm not the only person who managed to catch some of the equestrian competition. i, too, would have been clueless if not for the repeated explanation of how a winner would be picked.
and, for some reason, ever time i see the title of this post, it manages to say "yes, i am pregnant" and i always think whoa! how did i miss that news?

Cindy said...

I thought the equestrian competition was pretty fun to watch, but those commentators drove me crazy.

That's pretty funny. But if I were pregnant, I think I would title the blog post something like, "Oh no! Everything you saw in the X-files is true! Watch out for wacky sci-fi happenings in your own life! The impossible is now happening!" Because no one would be more surprised than me if I turned out to be pregnant right now.

Anonymous said...

Last night I heard a baseball commentator say that a certain player "literally lived in a shell when he was growing up."

He meant that the guy was introverted.

Cindy said...

Dad, that's another great one. I really was thinking for a minute that he was a "bubble boy" who had to live in an enclosed environment because of immune system problems.

Hokie said...

Hey, I was reading this memo from work about what they would do with our paychecks in the event that weather didn't permit us to come to work and receive them and I thought of you. Here was their final statement in the memo.

"In the event schools are open as scheduled on Tuesday, December 23, live paper checks will be distributed to buildings as usual."

Live! Really?! (I know, over punctuation, I think you had another post about that, or at least you could). Do they sing and dance or what? And if this is “as usual,” how come I have missed “paychecks live” in the past?