Words, phrases, and expressions that should be erased from the lexicon

I'm a wordy person. One time I was at a used bookstore and found a book called The Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate. It's a book entirely full of overly flowery and complicated words for dorks like me who enjoy being a walking thesaurus. I was happier than a 13-year-old boy with an unrestricted internet connection and parents on a day trip somewhere far away.

Given my affinity for words and my snobbish approach to deciding which one I feel is best in any particular situation (when I edit people's work, they end up despising me afterward,) I have a lot of opinions on what words are worthy of the utmost hatred.

FML: This is a shortened internet version of the phrase "Fuck my life." This phrase, whether in daily conversation or found in its abbreviated form online, is the anthem of our self-involved society. It is entirely nonsensical. It sounds unimaginably stupid. And your life isn't nearly as terrible as you think it is. A similar phrase that is awful for the same reasons is "fuck me!" What ever happened to good old "goddamnit?"

Hoighty-Toighty: It just sounds like crap.

Mediums: We had a perfectly good plural for this word already. Media. Mediums is now accepted by all sources, but I maintain it's wrong.

The reason why: Putting the why here is totally unnecessary. If you're going to say "Do you know the reason why?" you can carry across the same meaning by saying "Do you know the reason?" It's much more clear.

Due to the fact: Ever want to convince someone that your argument is sophomoric trash? Throw in a "due to the fact that" or two and you'll undermine your credibility in no time. I'm all for canning "due to" altogether and replacing it with "as a result of."

I could care less: No, you couldn't.

ATM Machine: Redundant.

Poughkeepsie: They really need to rename that city. New York is absolutely stuffed with towns that have really stupid-sounding names.

Emo: This word has no meaning. And it's really dumb. Only acceptable to describe a haircut.

There are probably hundreds more words and expressions I can think of that I loathe to the point that I will not say them and will stop reading the work of an author that uses them when I see them, but it's one of those things that needs to be brought out of me. It's hard to just sit here and think of them. More on this later.

Pittsburgh isn't bad, but it would be way cooler with...

Decent mass transit.

How many times have you not gone to the city because you don't want to make the drive? Think about it... There are those times of day when you know no matter what route you take, the drive will be an intolerable hassle. I know coming from Greensburg, all of my options are currently terrible during anything but the late hours of the night. I can:

Take Route 30 all the way from Greensburg to Forest Hills: This is a nice straight line, but it involves accelerating from 0 to 55 about 9 trillion times, because there are actually more red lights on this stretch of 30 than there are in the entire state of Montana. For those of us who staunchly refuse to drive automatics, that means going through all five gears only to end up right back at a standstill less than 20 seconds later. You've also got a LOT of people who hang out in the left lane and do less than the speed limit. This path is really only an option for the true masochist, or traveling late at night.

Take Route 30 to the Turnpike in Irwin, ride that for the exorbitant fee of $.95, get off in Monroeville, and take the Parkway in: This costs money, which is step one to making it a turn-off. Also, this particular section of the Turnpike has this weird twilight-zone effect where it seems like the distance between Irwin and Monroeville is multiplied twofold. It's not really that far, but this stretch of the Turnpike takes a while to negotiate anyway. Also, there are a lot of Ohio drivers on the Turnpike. Bad news. After you've dealt with that, you are dumped onto the Parkway which is conveniently under construction all the way to Churchill. During much of the day, this makes it nearly impassable, or at the very least a bit frustrating.

Do the same Turnpike thing, but take Old William Penn from Monroeville to Churchill: This allows you to laugh at the people on the Parkway who aren't going anywhere, unless it itself is backed up. I once spent 45 minutes on this route. It does dump you on the Parkway again right after the construction ends, which is great, and you can also stop at Udipi (which I'm told is amazing) for some Indian food because it's on the way there. But it's not the easiest path to navigate if you've never done it before, and is still subject to horrifying backups.

Could you imagine if there were a fourth option? Maybe it'd go something like this.

You get on Route 30 and drive to the Greengate plaza where Wal-Mart is located. You park in the lot of a light rail terminal, and get on a train that runs parallel to Route 30, which for $10 per trip takes you all the way to Pittsburgh in 50 minutes. Know what you do for that entire time? Whatever you can carry with you that doesn't disturb others.

Unless you have very specific mobility requirements in terms of timing or you have a lot to carry with you, given those options it's pretty evident which one is most appealing.

I know Pittsburgh's a small city, but it's a large metropolitan area which is plagued, in terms of transit, by its sprawling nature. That is compounded by the constant decay of the roads and the relatively few vehicular arteries into the city. Ever tried taking 51 into Pittsburgh from the South Hills? It's hell. From each direction, there is more or less only one large (sometimes not even that large) road that enters the city. There's also not a lot of space to put more large roads in place to supplement them. We need to look at alternatives.

Every once in a while someone starts talking about light rail lines into the city. I think we should invest in a full-out Metro system, whereby light rail travels above-ground into Pittsburgh from points as far away as Latrobe, and upon entering the city descends below-ground to become a subway system. DC and Boston have awesome examples of a system like this operational right now, and there is no shortage of riders. Even if the system doesn't make money in itself, the economic loss of traffic jams is incredible, and reducing it could provide a lot of benefits that may now be difficult to estimate.

I think we should run trains down the US 30 corridor from Latrobe, down US 22 from Murrysville, down 28 from New Kensington, from Cranberry to Pittsburgh, from the Airport to the city, and we should attach it all to the already-present line that runs from the South Hills to the Pittsburgh.

I know it's a hard push to make in a cash-strapped city with a population so used to driving their cars places that they may be difficult to convince to get on a train, but with the right sort of advertising this investment could turn Pittsburgh into a city that is much more respectable by national standards, and much more accessible to locals and tourists. In the end, it would make it a lot easier for people to go to Pittsburgh to spend money, ergo local business thrives, etc.

So why aren't they doing this?

Oh, and I know we have buses. But I've heard from numerous reliable sources that they're a joke. I think a caveat to this plan should be that the Port Authority should have nothing to do with it.

The view will get you laid (and nine other reasons to go to Mount Washington)

1: The view is more romantic than anything you're likely to think of before your next date.

2: It's free to park there at night.

3: It's really easy to get there.

4: The (usually) quiet and the view combined have a way of prompting great conversation.

5: If you have a steady hand, it can be a great way to get your camera some exercise.

6: It can easily be combined with a trip on the incline, which makes it also easily combined with a trip to Station Square.

7: It's a nice way to ease your way out of a fear of heights.

8: If your attempt to use the view for romantic purposes doesn't work out, it offers sweet relief from that feeling of rejection with only one jump.

9: You can use it to scout out other things you want to see in the city. Also it gives you an understanding of where things are in relation to one another in a city that is very difficult to mentally map from ground level.

10: It's a quintessential part of the Pittsburgh experience. If you have lived here for any amount of time, you need to have done it.

Why is it so got-damn cold?!

You might have heard this question. Maybe the cashier at Giant Iggle asked you. Maybe it was some homeless guy on the street right before he asked you for that cigarette you didn't have. Maybe it was you asking yourself while trying to make that jacket that looks like October but doesn't work when outside it feels like January wrap around your body twice. I myself only recently got out of the I'm-going-to-wear-a-t-shirt-because-it's-still-t-shirt-time denial I had been in. I remember well the moment when I plopped into my car, blinking away last night's hangover before a guaranteed-to-be-painful morning shift, and the seat-back sucked away every bit of human warmth my body contained, turning me into no more than a hung-over corpse wearing a name tag that says "Dave."

For the last two days, we've been teased. It got nice again... ish. The sun was shining today and it actually meant something by it this time.

Don't get used to it.

Some friends of mine from Wuhan (lauded as the furnace of China) are in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area teaching Chinese this year. They asked me before they even got on the plane: "Should I bring warm clothing?"

"Yes, yes you should. Bring more of it than anything else."

And a few weeks ago, y'know, before it even got below sixty, they told me "Wow, it's so cold here!"

"Cold? You haven't seen cold. Wait a few months."

My roommate Pedro is fresh out of João Pessoa, Brazil. That's like, really close to the equator. Hasn't even been in the states long enough to have seen a winter here. He told us (other roommate and myself) "I sort of like the cold."

Sure you do.

You keep saying that.

The boy has never seen snow in his life.

This is the average temperature chart for João Pessoa.
Wish you were there yet?
Think Pedro really will like the cold?

So I guess my point is that we're not alone in our loathing of the cold here. At least we're expecting it, though. Some people don't even know what to expect. I guess at least that means they won't dread it as much.

When did you finally dig out the jacket?

PennDOT Problem Solving

If you've ever traveled down the parkway from anywhere east of Pittsburgh, you've undoubtedly noticed this structure:
Does anything seem a little bizarre about this to you? Where else in the world would they have a bridge that starts falling down, so they put nets on it to catch the debris, but then the nets didn't do enough, so instead of, say, FIXING THE BRIDGE, they build a little structure to catch the falling debris?! Only in PA.

This fellow here has an interesting and amusing idea of how exactly the story went for this.

But, y'know, I haven't noticed this for a while. Are they finally replacing it? I don't know what the bridge is called, so I can't look it up, but I know they took one out entirely and are replacing it. I hope this is the one.

Wrlenrllkkom tog Pitetsbkrrh!

We all know Pittsburgh is a very idiosyncratic little city. We're generally pretty proud of the little things that make us seem absolutely bizarre to those outside our little valley in the mountains, like the bizarre post-German vernacular that a lot of our residents, even those without a drop of German blood, vomit on a daily basis. I guess that's why we haven't bothered to correct the blinking light on top of the Grant building. We love too much to bask in the glory of our own imperfection (and really, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just what we do.) to take something so hilariously incorrect and make it right. If we took ourselves that seriously, we might start looking at some of those bigger cities with good mass transit and populations over a million and get jealous. And who wants to be jealous? Better to be the awkward fat kid who's 100% comfortable with exactly who he is. We rock the awkward fat kid style.

Anyway, what's wrong with the Grant building? Unless you paid a lot of attention in Boy Scouts (or to the Post-Gazette,) it's probably never occurred to you at all, but there's a building in the Pittsburgh skyline (admittedly not even one of the principal ones) that has a little light atop it that blinks in morse code.

It's that one.

When it was being designed, it was common for a building in a given city's skyline to spell out the city's name in morse code. Back before fancy things like GPS, aviators needed a means of having some idea where they were. And they couldn't just GIS the city from their iPhone and find out "Oh, that one looks like Pittsburgh!" So ideally, this light at the top of the Grant building would slowly spell out "P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H" to aid the lost flyboy.

But like so many other things here, it's just not quite right. Nobody knows exactly when it failed to spell the right word, but at some point the beacon started mistakenly informing folks that they're in the city of "Pitetsbkrrh." Say it out loud a few times! PITETSBKRRH. It's fun.

I think other cities should follow suit. Soon you could fly over Sean Fritskrrrhsiscogh or Hkrroustbrn or Karnsks Citrrrhy. Cleveland might even change theirs to "Pittsburgh" just to give itself a self-esteem boost.

Correction:

Breath: noun.
Breathe: verb.
Alright: All wrong (except in cases of dialogue, IMHO)
All right: Okay!
You're: You are.
Your: Second person possessive.
There: A place.
Their: Third person plural possessive.
They're: They are.
Its: Third person neuter possessive.
It's: It is.
's: IN EVERY CASE BUT THE ABOVE: Possessive. That means NEVER PLURAL. EVER. Except in increasingly archaic use with acronyms.
You: Shouldn't have made these mistakes since third grade.

Want to see Pittsburgh actually "revive"?

With G20 having rolled through the city, all kinds of talk went around about why the G20 was invited to the city in the first place. I though probably because it's really close to Nemacolin. The official words from President Obama went something like "Blah blah blah revitalization blah blah."

That's a word that's been flying around a lot when Pittsburgh comes up. Some people rave about it, claiming that Pittsburgh is undergoing some sort of rust-belt renaissance, while others are more skeptical.

Regardless of whether you think things are going up, down, around, upside-down, or a mysterious as-yet-undefined direction called only "Dennis" by theoretical physicists, I can tell you one thing that won't "revitalize" Pittsburgh. And I'm going to explain why you should be aghast, offended, and outraged that it's even present. Because you as a Pittsburgher were not ever consulted before your city was violated.

I'm talking about something that probably doesn't even cross your mind on a regular basis, but it represents a big pile of wrongness festering in neon splendor on the north shore of the Ohio river. A wound into which money falls and never truly returns, inflicted by the "you pat my back and I'll pat yours" connections that city government has with anyone who has a significant amount of money. The economic welfare of some of the people of our city was sold to Don Barden and Neil Bluhm in order to finance a new arena and provide projected tax revenue.

At face value, at least the tax revenue idea doesn't seem so bad, but if you look at what people at different income levels spend on gambling, it's effectively a voluntary and highly regressive tax. That is to say, low- and middle-income people spend much more on gambling as a percentage of income than the rich do. So money that would otherwise be spent on something useful, or at least some sort of manufactured product (which inevitably will employ more people than casino operation), is thrown down into a hole where it ends up mostly in the hands of a few wealthy individuals (after all, casinos are guaranteed profits) and the county.

This issue is compounded by the fact that many casino patrons are elderly folks who are on incomes provided by Social Security. That means there are people using money that you paid in the form of taxes to the federal government, and it is eventually ending up going into machines that are programmed not to give it back. There is a certain amount of time you spend at work because old people want to sit in front of machines and fart on stools while effectively lighting dollar bills on fire, in the name of "entertainment."

"Programmed not to give it back?" Of course! Gambling is, by nature of what it is, a zero-sum game at best. As soon as cost of equipment, licensing, and maintenance of the system is added to that model, it becomes a negative-sum game. That is, if you play enough it is inevitable that you will put more money into it than you got out. You are guaranteed to lose a majority of the time. Make it a for-profit business and you just make it even less likely that your patrons will go home any richer than they arrived. The highly addictive nature of gambling just makes it even worse: People rarely quit while they're ahead.

What does this mean? Think about this: If 500 people go, spend an average of $20 and get an average of $5 back, that is $7500 daily that is taken out of the local economy (except a pittance paid to casino staff. You know Barden and Bluhm aren't spending it here, they're investing it in their next big scam [that is, aside from the money going to the new Penguins arena.]) Yearly, that is almost 2.75 million dollars that will never see the light of day in Pittsburgh again. And I'm sure that's a conservative estimate. Then we could even talk about the additional law enforcement attention that casinos require, and the crime that frequently surrounds them, in terms of economic cost. Crime and enforcement are both expensive.

So my point is that if the powers that be in Pittsburgh really cared about its revitalization, they might have exercised some restraint in deciding whether to put a casino here. I just hope the people will exercise some restraint in terms of how much money they sink into false hope and golden dreams. Or maybe casino proceeds can be used entirely to fund healthcare for the old people who spend their money there. As long as there's someone with no interest in the welfare of our city running it, the casino is just a bleeding sore on the north shore. (See? Lookit, I rhymed!)