Archived comment by triticale:
Same with this one.

Archived comment by Ben:
Ah, the 'S' bend... for so long I thought this to be just the stylistic flare of some toilet designer long since forgotten... but no, it serves a functional purpose - preventing noxious plumbing odors from invading your home (it acts as a catch)

For this and more toilet history: The History of Plumbing.

Saddly I've known about this site for years... I actually had it bookmarked it was so weird.

Archived comment by Kate:
Well, words have only ever meant anything because they were commonly used that way.

And 'cleave' means both stick together and split apart. But that's old, so we probably won't bitch about that, no?

Archived comment by umrguy:
Alex Andra, might you possibly be referring to regardless/irregardless?

Archived comment by dave:
Ben, I think we're already at the S bend at least.

Alex Andra, could the two words possibly be flammable and inflammable? Probably not given that inflammable was never the opposite of flammable. Er, just forget I said anything. I was coming at this from the wrong side of my mind?

Archived comment by Adam:
It seems to me that Vandalizer #2 has a serious case of low self worth... some other arbitrary person's life is actually more important than his own to him...

Archived comment by Alex Andra:
that would explain why i see 'a lot' spelled as one word all the time. And why two words that mean the exact oppisite of each other can now be found in the dictonary as meaning the same thing.
I forget which two words though, sorry.

Archived comment by Ben:
Saying anything is correct usage by widespread precident indicates to me that the english language is about to be completely flushed down the toilet by modern culture. (And yes, it is being flushed down the toilet as we speak).

Archived comment by Mr. Suckling:
Sorry...click my name.

Archived comment by Mr. Suckling:
See
href="http://www.bartleby.com/61/50/G021500
0.html">American Heritage for a relevant
usage note.

Archived comment by Ben:
Graffiti is the plural of Graffito (by dictionary.com). So has anybody actually ever seen just a graffito? How do you make the distinction? Shoudn't it be 'these are examples of graffiti' and not 'this is an example of graffiti' ('this is an example of graffito' is acceptable)? Argh, once again, strange english rules clutter my brain.

Archived comment by David:
The entire exchange seems to be ignoring one very salient fact: GRAFFITI ARE NOT ALIVE! (That is, unless you buy into all the lit crit hoo-ha about the text as a living entity and so forth, which is why I got out of academia in the first place.) So the proper response to the second question would of course be, "I'm not. So there."

Archived comment by Montygirl:
Maybe the first person thought they had killed the second person. Or, maybe the first person hired a hit-man to kill the second person, and the hit-man had already cashed the check, so the first person thought the deed was done. Then, the first person was shocked or disappointed to learn that the second person was very much alive, much to the chagrin and dismay of the first person, obviously duped by the wretched, untrustworthy(go figure) hit-man.

Just goes to show, if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself!

Archived comment by Matt:
And is Ralleigh's a ripoff of the the Raleigh's next to Mario's La Fiesta? Sorry: couldn't resist. You know we appreciate you, Eve; it's just that your foibles happen to be on public display. And hey; it was the first day of classes. Anybody could be forgiven for typos after that.

In other news, I'm back! My DSL's back up and running, I'm back from vacation, and Matt is a very happy boy because of it all.

Archived comment by umrguy:
Is an aarow anything like an arrow?

Why is someone alive? Well, it's all because when a Daddy and a Mommy love each other very much... oh, it was being more philosophical than that? Never mind...