Mister Faded Glory | www.misterfadedglory.com

Yeah, I couldn’t recall hearing that one either, until today. You see, I’m a corporate drone in the actual midpoint of the United States – Salina, Kansas – and I’m still adjusting to some of the foibles of the “deep Midwest” (aside: Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri are the most rural/hickest of the MW, in my opinion. Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin form the Nasally Midwest, or Northern Midwest, and Illinois is the Eastern Midwest. More riveting pseudo-commentary later, I promise.)

Anyway, I was sending around some flyer designs via email, for approval or feedback. One of the responses I received, from Liberal Kansas (comma omitted for hilarity), was none other than – “It beats a poke in the eye!”

Now, aside from any professional concerns or workplace appearance, I don’t really know how to take that phrase. I suppose it means my product was okay. Still, its inclusion in email was profoundly amusing, an absurd colloquialism probably familiar to southwestern KS folk, but new to me. Anyway, as you are well aware, I’m a stickler for grammar and proper – or at least uppity – usage, and this reminded me of my least-favorite phrase often used in Kansas.

“I was setting in the theater.” “Hey Bill! Set down over there.”

Ugh. People, it’s sitting. You sit. Alliteration sits. People do not set.

Set is not a catch-all phrase. There is a difference – albeit subtle – between set and sit. Keep smacking yourself with that pitchfork, you’ll get it.

For instance, I don’t say, “I saw the Cubs game come on at 10 p.m. last night after a three-hour rain delay, and so I set up all night.”

And I don’t say, “After the Cubs blew the game because Jose F. Macias and Jody Gerut were inexplicably in, I set up all last night fuming at the Cubs’ inept situational hitting.”

And, of course, I do not say, “Jose, nice center-field play. Why don’t you go set on the bench where you belong.”

Thus endeth the lesson for today. And, yes, if you’re wondering, I did somehow get suckered into sitting up till nearly two a.m., watching a terrible rain-delayed baseball game. Beats a poke in the eye, I guess.