I'm a bit of a pedant about the English language.
It's not an awfully popular trait and it certainly irritates – and on occasions embarrasses my friends – but, nagdarnit, someone's got to stand up for good old fashioned values like intelligibility.

Sadly, sometimes we pedants feel like the tide of history is rolling the wrong way and threatening to crush under its mass of general stupidity.
That sounds a bit harsh doesn't it?
I don't want to come across as all superior. Or condescending (that means to look down on others). But this week I've got a beef, not with people who use the language incorrectly, but with the dictionaries, who once used to be my friend.
I know you only simply have to Google a word these days but I still like dictionaries that come in that tired old format we used to call books. The ones with paper rather than screens. They are a calm repository of knowledge and, unlike Wikipedia and other internet sources, they usually get things right.
But, it would appear, no longer.
One of my big English language bugbears has always been the word literally. It is, literally, the most mis-used word you will ever come across. 'Literally” means 'in a literal or strict sense, as opposed to a non-literal or exaggerated sense”, and is the opposite of 'figuratively,” which means 'in a metaphorical sense”.
The problem here is that 'figuratively” is a crap word. It could be seen as just a wee bit pretentious. So people keep saying things like: 'my head literally exploded when I heard John Key's latest brain fade”. And we pedants say: 'No it didn't, or you'd be having a hard time talking to me with exploded bits of brain all over the place. You mean it figuratively exploded”.
But now we've been betrayed. By the dictionaries.
And not just any dictionaries. The big ones. A number, including Merriam-Webster and the revered Oxford, now include the 'informal” use of the word literally, the 'informal” use being the one that is not only totally incorrect but also says the opposite of what it really means.
The Oxford puts it this way: 'It is used for emphasis while not being literally true”. Oh the irony.
If you now say something is literally true you might actually mean... that it's not literally true.
Pedants of the world, unite and weep. Literally.
And with that, since my blood is now literally boiling, I better move on to something more musically inclined and, by fortunate coincidence, there's a concert coming up just down the road from the Watusi Country Club which I'm most excited about.
Yep, it's party time again at the Te Puna Memorial Hall when a group calling themselves ‘Too Many Chiefs' plays there on Sunday, August 25. Too Many Chiefs? Never heard of them? Fair enough. It's a name they have adopted for just this tour. But I suspect you'll have heard of some of the band.
All four are singer/songwriters from Wellington: on the keyboard is Wayne Mason, the man who wrote New Zealand's perennial favourite ‘Nature'. That was, of course, a long time ago. Since then Wayne has been a Warratah and released a string of solo albums. On guitars, and possibly banjo, mandolin and more is Andrew London, a frequent visitor to these parts with his regular band called Hot Club Sandwich. Writer of several albums of witty swinging Hot Club Sandwich songs he's currently put the band on hiatus while pursuing other projects (like this one).
Then there are a couple of equally experienced singers, albeit less known in the Bay: Rob Joass has been a mainstay of the Wellington scene with long-standing Irish group Hobnail Boots as well as the more recent alt-country outfit The Shot Band; and there's Laura Collins, recently at the Rotorua Blues Festival with The Back Porch Blues Band and now also singing with The Shot Band. She has a fantastic voice.
So that's what's happening at the Te Puna Hall next weekend. Doors open at 7pm and the concert starts at 7.30pm. A bar and refreshments will be available. Admission is $20. For more information, contact Rosie Holmes at: [email protected]