Objective

The objective statement, often featured at the top of an American resume, is meant to show employers exactly what a candidate wants. Instead, it is usually the lamest and most artificial part of what is already an already unbearably self-promoting document.

While a true objective statement might say something like this:

"To find a high-paying job where I won't be treated like a kid and won't have to do a lot of stuff I don't like"

Most sound something like this:

"To find* a position in a professional environment that will utilize my organizational, communication, and technical skills."

*Extra points for "procure"

I have absolutely no expertise in HR and taking my advice is not likely to help you, but for the sake of good language, I think the objective statement should say exactly what you want or not be there at all.

Also

'Also', which ironically once meant 'similarly', is now the word of choice to introduce a non sequitur into internet comments and posts. Its impact is highest when the preceding text is long and somewhat formal.

Also, it's kinda funny.

Acceptability status: OMG RANDOM!!!!1!!

Counting Words

Hearing this piece on Terry Gross last night is actually what inspired me to get this blog up and running again. A linguist named Geoffrey Nunberg talks about the latest craze of counting words to prove points. If this man is to be believed, some American media outlets may use half-baked analysis to add some meat to mind-numbing, unproductive debates.

Surrected Again

Really Smart Parrots is back, though I'm sad to say I deleted all the traces of the old blog. I may try to recreate some of the posts if I can remember them, but that remains to be seen.

I'm casting a wider net this time and will be keeping the concept of this blog pretty vague, though the general focus will be modern English usage, and I don't mean that the way your 10th grade English textbook does. Sometimes I might mean it like that, though. I would call this "amateur linguistics," but I don't want to scare anyone off.

This is not a blog about "correct" usage, mainly because I don't want to have to triple proofread every post and justify every comma. Also, I don't want to attract googling grammar snobs.

In keeping with one of my new rules about not being a perfectionist about every post, I'm signing out now. Stay tuned.