I didn’t really want to read the article. Mostly because I think Cheney is a weeping pustule upon the leprous, unwashed taint of America, and I also know that nothing’s going to happen to the fucker, even if he should rot in jail for the rest of his life, preferably whilst having his arse traded amongst the other inmates for cigarettes and pudding cups (why yes, I am that vindictive!) Still, even the Grammar Nazi is vulnerable to Car Accident Syndrome and had to look. The Grammar Nazi cares nothing for world events, or politics, or news. The Grammar Nazi cares only for the grammar, and here is part of Satan’s…uh…I mean Cheney’s quote:

…The New York Times broke the story I think in December of ‘05, won the Pulitzer for it, which always aggravated me.

As I understand it, the old fucker has had a heart attack or two (unfortunately, he survived), but he still qualifies as something externally resembling a human, so no, no, no and a thousand times, no. It did not “aggravate” Cheney or anyone else that the NYT won a Pulitzer, or any other kind of award. That is an impossible statement because no human being (or humanoid lizard-demon, in the case of Cheney) was, is or can ever be “aggravated”. A human being can be annoyed, irritated, irked, vexed, bothered, miffed and just plain pissed off. Aggravation is the exclusive domain of a condition, especially a medical condition.

It annoyed me that George wasn’t here yesterday because moving that baby grand piano by myself aggravated my sciatica and I can hardly walk today!

The unnamed person in the sentence was not aggravated, George was not aggravated, and the baby grand piano was not aggravated because none of the aforementioned are conditions. In this sentence, only the sciatica–a medical condition–can be aggravated.

Christ. I don’t care about “relaxed standards” or that stupid kids’ game (which is probably a good part of the reason so many don’t know the correct usage) and “people understand what you mean”. English, motherfucker…do you speak it?