You Have A This Problem

What is this anyway?

I knew this discussion would be annoying when it starts out with that statment. 

What are you talking about?

This!

What?

THIS!

Ok, there are a lot of THIS around here.  Be more specific.

THIS!

It's late, tell me what you want or I'll pick something.

THIS!


Well... the puppy chased its tail for a while.   Finally it was narrowed down to a specific object on the couch.


"THIS" is a cover for the dog bed.

OK, it was on MY chair and I didn't know what it was!

Thinking that it's probably best not to say what I was thinking - you picked it up so you should have figured it out when you moved it those six feet, those two meters across the room.  It's blue and white and fuzzy and has the name of a pet store on the side...

Very good... ok... so -

No, really, I didn't know what this was!

You really should not use that word.  Make an effort to excise this from your vocabulary.

Do what?

Don't use the word.

Which word?

This.

Yes, which word.

Ok, it is really too late for this.  You have a this problem.

See now you're doing it and you're speaking Italian now.

No I am not speaking Italian and if I were, it's ok, they're my people.  That is because we are using the word as a definite pronoun, not an indistinct member of an indistinct set of items.

What is wrong with this?

No, what is wrong with that?, and I'm not going to be a grammar nazi after 9pm.  It's not my jurisdiction.

Oh sure, you can but I'm not allowed to use This.

No, you're not allowed.  Consider it my word.  Some day I may loan it to you but I will always have ownership over it.

No, this is my word too.

It went on like that for a while.

I'm sure we all have friends like that.  Imprecision is comedy, not language.  Save a mind today, use this sparingly.