stickler?

one of my main pet peeves is when people confuse the word "your" with "you're". i myself do not see what is so hard about getting the correct word in the right place right. "your"= possesion. what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours. "you're"= you are. you are cool. you are not. you're retarded if you say your retarded. ohmy. i'm rather mean, aren't i? am i a bitch? you can tell me if i am, i won't mind. it's something i need to work on.
i was sparked by this rampage just because i see it all the time. everywhere.on.the.world.wide.web. one person wrote an entire list of question asking about what "you're favorite" ____ was. you can imagine what a time i had reading that... i stopped after about the 4th question because i couldn't take it.
if you think i am a drama queen and that i am just getting annoyed by nothing, i'm going to type a whole paragraph with improper usage of "your" and "you're". you can decide for yourself whether i am simply an anal loser or, what i say has some truth and evidence.

dear johnny,
i used you're toothbrush today. i hope you don't mind. i'd like to mention that i'm just getting over a cold, so you might want to get a new toothbrush. your so kind! it's thoughtful of you to lend me a hand even though i know about you're little secret. yes, i know. don't try to hide it from me, johnny. but don't worry, i promise i won't tell a soul. you're secret is safe with me. well, i have to get to my dentist appointment, i've got to check on my gingivitus. it's been flaring up recently. thanks so much. your the best!

and i have no idea where this came from. it was a burst of output from my strange and perplexing brain.
when i think about this, i've concluded that i sound like a bitch. though i don't want to, i appear to be too anal and picky when it comes to these things. i suppose i'm a bit of a hypocrit, since i probably misuse other words or commit grammatical crimes. heck, i probably use way too much passive for my own good (though i'm trying not to). this issue seems really trivial and lame compared to worldly problems like poverty and homelessness, but i feel that as high school students, people should know when to use the proper "your" and "you're". in junior school, we learned all about apostrophes and how they "take the place of a letter". therefore, it seems quite simple to figure out that the apostrophe in "you're" must represent something... like, oh, THE A. ohhhhhhh well. i'll probably end up deleting this later because it really doesn't have any intellectual value to it. kind of like my borat post that i deleted.
i guess the whole "blogging" thing gives me the urge to just type whatever since it's a "blog". i go into a sort of "myspace" mode, (ohmygosh i can't believe i just admitted that) and just type random things. that's probably why i named my blog "random thoughts". i really am random. this reminds me of mr. dyke in chapel, when he reads his words of wisdom or whatever it is we are supposed to reflect about. his reading about conversations on the boys bathroom wall was certainly random... but extremely enjoyable to listen to. his monotonous voice doesn't make it boring at all, in fact, it makes his writing more pleasurable and it matches well with his papered train of thought. is papered even a word? okay.... i'm going to stop now before this gets any worse. sayoonara.

onamatopoeia

i love making up onamatopoetic expressions. i think that they are the most honest way of describing the noise something makes. there are the common ones that act as actual words since they are so accurate, such as "sizzle" and "beep". there are also those we've almost accepted as actual words, such as, "vrooom" (the sound a car or motorcycle makes) and "woosh" (the sound anything makes when it is going fast). but, i like to create my own. the sound a pebble thrown into the water makes a "sploosh" or a "ploop" not a splash. a cricket's song goes like "krree krrree krrree" rather than a simple "chirpping". the japanese language is chalk full of onamatopoeias. as a student of japanese, we always have to memorize some "kasanekotoba", or the onamatopoetic expressions that the fluent speakers use. take for example, "zaazaa"- the sound a heavy rain makes, or "don" the sound thunder booms. i like "pechakucha" which is the sound of chattering people. the japanese even have onamatopoeias to describe feelings and emotions. "wakuwakusuru" describes excitement, "butsubutsu" is how someone grumbles or complains and "jitto" is a state of motionless. idk about you, but i think that's interesting and it certainly shows that other people feel the same way i do about onamatopoetic expressions. haha.
sure, you could use metaphors and similies that compare the sound to another familiar one that the reader would picture hearing. but, onamatopoeias are uncensored. it's like listening to little kids describe what something does; it's unabridged. you're not really thinking if the words you are using sound "intelligent" or if they are concise enough. take the sentence, "the beads in the can rattled around, sounding like raindrops falling lightly on the wooden shingles of my roof."then take an onamatopoetic sentence, "the beads in the can rattled around, sounding like the time a passing shower pitter pattered on the wooden shingles of my roof". as a reader, i find the 2nd sentence more appealing, because "pitter pattered" creates better imagery and "soundry (?) lol (imaging the sound)" compared to "falling lightly." additionally, because i know what sound rain makes, my brain connects that sound to the onamatopoetic word, thinking, "oh yeah, it really does sound like that."
but as with anything, onamatopoetic expressions have their flaws. first of all, the biggest problem to me, is that the reader will only understand what you are talking about if they have experienced what you are describing before. for example, it will be harder for someone to think about "the large man canonballed into the water with a resounding 'blooosh'" if they had never seen that before. secondly, though i believe these words are just as accurate and concise as using similies and metaphors, more "serious" papers will probably not sound as good if you use a made up word. these kinds of papers usually call for "censoring" and trying to sound as intelligent as you can, which doesn't always include onamatopoeias.
i find onamatopoeias more engaging than the common metaphor or overused similie. they are a breath of fresh air, plus, they add a bit of humor. this could be because my voice, or the style i write, describes things (authentically of course) using humor to steer away from boredom and the same old same old. but that's not the point. the point is, that onamatopoetic expressions are just plain funny. waaaaaaaaaaaaaataaaaaaaaaaa!