That is the exact opposite of what you mean

Breaking news: Specific words have specific meanings.

I know, I know, I just shattered your world. But I’m not sorry. Because this bullshit has got to stop.

You know what I don’t find amusing? When I am told one thing by someone when they mean the opposite. Everyone has probably heard someone rant about the usage of literally vs. figuratively, so I’m not going to talk about that here (at least right now). But I have a prime example of something even stupider.

Anyone who knows me (and now even people who don’t!) knows that the only sport I give a shit about is tennis. It’s the sport that I grew up playing with my dad, grandfather and grandmother. I played on the team in middle school, high school and college. I watch every Grand Slam I can. I go to the US Open as often as possible. I’ve even been to Wimbledon once. I love this sport.

When Significant Other and I moved, we decided to ditch cable, because let’s face it: It’s fucking expensive and most shows you can watch on Hulu and most movies you can get from Netflix. So why pay $100/month for channels we’re never going to watch? It doesn’t make sense.

For those who don’t know, Wimbledon is going on right now. And the semifinals were yesterday and today and the finals are this weekend. Today, I wanted to watch the matches instead of just seeing the live scores, but NBC owns the airing rights in the U.S. to, I believe, all the Grand Slams. WORST IDEA EVER. Here’s why:

Lies, lies and more lies

They are liars.

You may wonder what exactly is wrong with this image. Well, lucky for you I’m here to fucking break it down. First off, Wimbledon takes place in England, which is FIVE HOURS AHEAD of the U.S. Often the matches start in the late morning/early afternoon U.K. time.

Do you see the problem yet? No? Let me break it down even further.

I took this screencap today around 11AM U.S. time. After the first men’s semifinal match had concluded and the second semifinal match was about to start. But NBC says their “live” stream schedule is 12-5 Eastern Time.

…

HOW IS THAT LIVE?! Breaking news: It isn’t live if it’s shown on a fucking delay, assholes. That is the exact opposite of the meaning of “live”. At first I thought maybe there had to be a delay to account for transmitting the signal across the ocean, but that’s bullshit. Today, the first semifinal match started at 8AM ET time (1PM at Wimbledon). But NBC wasn’t offering “live” streaming until 12PM (5PM at Wimbledon).

Hm. That’s an interesting use of the word live.

Then I thought, maybe they’ll be showing the second semifinal live, even though they’d be picking it up after the start. So I checked around 1PM (at the same time watching the live score update on Wimbledon’s website, so I knew that they were in the third set at this point). Lo and behold, NBC is showing the second set, which had ended about 30 minutes earlier, and for which I ALREADY KNEW THE RESULT. What the fuck?

THAT IS NOT WHAT “LIVE” MEANS. YOU ARE SHOWING THE VIDEO ON A DELAY. YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYONE.*

Now, I can understand why people sometimes use a word incorrectly. It still drives me crazy, but I certainly do not have impeccable grammar in conversation, so I don’t expect other people to (although that is slightly different than using a word incorrectly, but my point is I’m not as much of a stickler during conversation). But a corporation like NBC should be able to invest in a fucking dictionary in order to figure this shit out. Hell, they don’t even need to BUY a dictionary now. There are multiple websites that serve as dictionaries! So NBC is pretty much just a bunch of fucking liars and/or lazy assholes at this point. I clicked on their video link expecting to see LIVE VIDEO, and instead it was a set behind the action. A WHOLE SET. Not even like two or three games, which could be chalked up to an unavoidable delay because of distance. But this is just NBC being a bunch of assholes. Or, if for some reason their five-hour delay really is unavoidable (HA, try to convince me of THAT), they should MAKE THAT CLEAR. Because right now they just come across as liars or idiots, or both.

But aside from the fact that they are using the wrong word, they also need to get with reality. Breaking news: It is 2010. There is no excuse to 1) be lying about “live” video and 2) purposely delay your coverage just to be assholes to people who do not have cable. This actually doesn’t make me want to purchase cable and it certainly does not endear NBC to me. SO THERE IS NO FUCKING POINT TO THIS STRATEGY, except to make me glad that I don’t pay for NBC anymore.

I’m tempted to purchase a pocket dictionary and send it to NBCSport’s office. Although I wonder if anyone there would even know what it was or how to use it.

*Okay, maybe they’re fooling really stupid people, but that hardly counts.

EDIT: Oh look, The New York Times agrees with me! SUCK ON THAT, NBC!

Nice try, you lying assholes

Today, friends, we are going to talk about advertisements I see on public transportation. Well, really, we’re going to talk about one ad in particular that pisses me off every fucking time I see it, because they’re trying to capitalize on controversy to sound like they’re being really generous.

Hint: None of those is an alternative to abortion

If you will look to the right, you will see the ad in question. Sorry for the blurry photo, but I was standing at the time and also trying not to get too many people in the photo. I cut out the phone numbers because they are not relevant to my rant, but otherwise this photo is unaltered. If you can’t read it, it says:

FREE ABORTION ALTERNATIVES

• FREE Confidential Options Counseling
• FREE Pregnancy Tests
• FREE Ultrasounds

Doesn’t that sound generous? All of these abortion alternatives are being offered for FREE!!!! It’s so wonderful!

Except for one tiny problem: THOSE ARE NOT ALTERNATIVES TO ABORTION. ARGH.

This ad seriously gives me an aneurysm every time I see it because it is just A FUCKING LIE. I know they did it on purpose to take advantage of people who are pregnant and conflicted about it and to also take advantage of the abortion “controversy” to try and make it seem like they are really generous, offering all these ALTERNATIVES for FREE. I just can’t even believe they’re allowed to put such a blatantly false advertisement out in public.

For those of you still unclear on my qualm, let’s go to Merriam-Webster to get the definition of “alternative”:

Main Entry: ²alternative

Function: noun

Date: 1624

1 a : a proposition or situation offering a choice between two or more things only one of which may be chosen b : an opportunity for deciding between two or more courses or propositions
2 a : one of two or more things, courses, or propositions to be chosen b : something which can be chosen instead <the only alternative to intervention>
3 : alternative rock music

synonyms see choice

That is copied and pasted right from the fucking dictionary website. Now, I like to think most the people reading this have at least two fucking brain cells to rub together, but I’m sure there’s at least one person who still fails to see the problem. So I made a handy flow chart to illustrate:

As you can see, you have two choices once you are pregnant

If you are pregnant, you only have TWO FUCKING CHOICES. And that is to either to have a baby or to terminate the pregnancy. If you decide to abort, that’s the end of your choices at the moment. If you decide to have the baby, you can then decide to KEEP the baby or put it up for adoption. So now with this wonderful flow chart I created, and the definition of “alternative” provided by Merriam-Webster, any idiot can see that this advertisement is a fucking joke. But let’s break it down even further:

• FREE Pregnancy Tests

The organization that created this advertisement clearly has no fucking idea of what parallel options or alternatives are. To them, an alternative to abortion is a pregnancy test! That’s interesting, because most women I know don’t think about getting an abortion at all unless they already know they are pregnant. So if you already know you’re fucking pregnant, why would you need a pregnancy test, free or otherwise? YOU ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THE PREGNANCY. A PREGNANCY TEST IS NOT AN ALTERNATIVE TO ABORTION. Jeeze, this one alone is giving me a conniption, it’s just so obviously fucking stupid. Who in their right mind would read that and think this was a good deal? Unless there are women out there who go around constantly thinking about abortions even if they aren’t pregnant, in which case my message to them is: Seek mental help immediately.

• FREE Ultrasounds

Again, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is not an alternative to abortion. The choice is not “Hm, do I get an abortion or do I get an ultrasound?” It’s “DO I FUCKING HAVE THIS BABY OR NOT?” An ultrasound is irrelevant to that choice. It’s something you get done once you’ve decided to have the baby, or if you go to one of those fucking terrible clinics that make you have an ultrasound before you get an abortion to try and guilt you into keeping a baby you don’t want (but they’ll be damned if they help you out once you have the kid they made you feel guilty for wanting to abort! I don’t even know how those fucking places are allowed to exist, but I digress). It’s once again fucking painfully obvious that this organization is basically going to coerce you into having the baby whether you actually want it or not. Which brings me to the final bullet point:

• FREE Confidential Options Counseling

Normally, I would say this is a good and beneficial service, because choosing to have a child or not is a big, life-altering decision, and if you are at all uncertain you definitely should talk to someone about it. BUT this organization has made it painfully obvious in less than 100 words on their advertisement that they don’t know anything about “options”. Their goal is to make you keep that baby no matter what, and I’ll bet anything their “counselors” don’t even talk about abortion as a viable option, but rather as a terrible crime. So they can take this “options counseling” and shove it up their fucking stupid asses, because it’s bullshit. If  they’re headlining this advertisement with a false statement that is not backed up by the information listed, I wouldn’t fucking trust these assholes to spell my name correctly, nonetheless try and counsel me on a major life decision.

So, let’s recap:

You are doing it so, so wrong

Abortion, Ultrasound, Pregnancy Test and Counseling are NOT alternatives for one another. They are not alternatives for one another by any definition of the word “alternative” on any fucking planet in the universe. Next time you want to be ignorant, try to make it more subtle, because this is just painfully stupid.