Big Fat Ostrich

Ok, I’ve got serious issues with the word ‘Addicting‘ and it’s rampant use on ye olde internete (plus it’s a slow blogging night)

I know, I know, the debate over addictive and addicting has been raging on for what seems like decades (in internet time). And really, how seriously must we debate language on the net when so much of it is bastardized anyway? Most of the Internet is made up of bad writing, porn, and well, that’s pretty much it.

The thing is, it gets under my skin EVERY TIME the word Addicting pops up in a search, an ad, or a blog, so something must be done about it. Common examples are as such:

A quote: “That game is so addicting!”
An advert: “Free addicting games!”

The worst though, is when you start typing addictive in Google’s search window and the auto-complete gives you “addicting games” after you’ve only typed the letters “ad”. This tells us that we, those who fight for Addictive‘s contextual supremacy, are losing the battle. Why? Because when the majority of people are wrong, then advertisers must stoop to their level to reach them. At this point, I must digress.

Apparently, Addicting actually is a word (yet I haven’t actually found concrete proof in Websters online dictionary) but it’s a transitive verb. Addictive however, is an adjective, and we don’t replace adjectives with verbs. Why? Because those are the rules. If we break the rules, we end up like this and destroy the human race. So based on those rules, addicting does not mean addictive.

Man, I even checked Wikipedia for addicting and came up with nothing. And the internet never ever lies. There’s an article about Addiction and addictive comes up in the text. No addicting though, so maybe there is hope after all.

Bah. I’ve said all I care to say about this. I’m going to stick in some Google ads just to annoy myself further. Trust me. They’ll say addicting.

July 10th marked what would have been Nikola Tesla‘s 153rd birthday had he lived that long. We figured that a small tribute was in order to the man who many credit as single-handedly bringing us into the modern electric age.

In his lifetime, he held hundreds of different patents for various inventions, many of which are in use today in various incarnations. Typical of the genius he possessed, he was also super mega-eccentric.

Aside from inventing Alternating Current and the Induction Coil, Tesla also proposed a crazy particle beam Death Ray weapon. Essentially, he was the ultimate genius/mad scientist who was often disregarded as a complete crackpot due to his eccentric nature. As such, Tesla died completely destitute even though he had sold his patents.

So Happy Birthday, Tesla! Without you I probably wouldn’t even be typing this less than inspired tribute to you. That’s probably not true, but your inventions certainly helped jump start the electric revolution.

m.