Below are the 3 most recent journal entries recorded in the_lexpert's LiveJournal:

Thursday, May 10th, 2007
9:45 am	post-annoyed by pre-stupidity When something is 'pre-heated', that means it's already piping hot, ready to be eaten or stuck under your bum or shoved somewhere else you'd like to be warm. If I buy a 'pre-owned' car, that means it's already had one driver. What do you think a 'pre-approved' credit card means? Since I'm bothering to write about this, you've most likely answered "well, Ross, certainly not an already approved credit card!" And you'd be right. Apparently when American Express sent me an invitation to accept their Blue for Business credit card with the text "Accept now -- it's easy, you're already pre-approved!" emblazoned across its html-rich email body, they didn't mean most of it. They didn't mean 'now', 'easy', or 'already'. But they did mean 'pre-approved'. The 'pre' affix they must have been referring to is the one coupled with words like 'pre-wash' (something you do before you wash) or 'prenatal care' (benefits you get before you give birth). It wasn't until I learned that I wasn't yet approved, that I noticed the 'pre-approved' adjective was never applied to the card, but to me! I'm pre-approved! I'm 'before approval'! Well, who the heck isn't?? Amex is fast approaching losing my business. I'm not only pre-approved, I'm pre-left for some other card. (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
10:33 am	a Lexpert As of today, I am no longer a graduate student of Linguistics. I'm no longer a graduate student of any sort. I'm certainly not a graduate student at Northwestern, taking a year off to pursue his software developer dreams, only to return the following year and begin where he left off. Nope. I'm a software engineer. Or more precisely, I'm a software architect. I work at the top of a tower, where I can look down over Lake Michigan and see the sky unfold out over the water to be tucked in at the horizon. While I'm up there, I think about really cool web apps. The linguistics department has been informed that I won't be coming back down from my tower, not for all the Chris Kennedys or motivations for semantic drift among compound adjectives in the world. I have some time to think now. The past six months have seen evenings that are full like a glass should be and not spilling over into the vacuum of graduate life, and so I may get a few moments to think. When I do, I'll need a place to put the thoughts I want to tell people, and the_lexpert seems particularly appropriate. I can't recall exactly how I got the name, but I do remember it was during a Pullum rant on people who believe they know how the human language works, and enjoy very much telling other people how wrong they are. I'm still a bit of a Lexpert. Welcome, anyone who wants to read. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 26th, 2004
11:19 am	Hello World. I am here to quote a certain 9-year old. "potatoes,potatoes,potatoes,the only problem is that they are potatoes." Genius. RB (Comment on this)