Dammit.

How it’s spelled:

  • God dammit
  • God damn it
  • goddammit
  • damn it

How it’s not spelled:

  • damnit

When you spell it like “damnit” my brain thinks you’re saying “dam-n-it”. It’s one of the most frustrating pronunciations my brain tries to perform when it’s spelled this way because the word has to slow down to pronounce the “n” and speed back up to say the “it”. Stop it, God dammit.

Wait for it.

There’s a lot of forced-sensation being placed on literary suspense these days. Much of that faux suspense comes in the form of the injected phrase “… wait for it…”.

This method is often used when a person puts too much emphasis on information that could otherwise be delivered regularly at the end of a sentence. I came across a post about some person leaving their job at Ubisoft where, within the first paragraph, at the end of the 3rd sentence, the author uses the “wait for it” method.

Back in 2005, I remember my boss asking me where I’d see myself in 10 years. I answered without hesitation: I want to be a software architect on a big-ass AAA project! The dream came to life a few years later, when I started working on Assassin’s Creed Syndicate as – wait for it – software architect.

Why am I waiting? Who the fuck cares if this person got a software architect job when there was zero emotional investment in their career choice? Here’s how I see modern usage of “wait for it” and why it’s so fucking bland:

I learned what 3+3 equals today. Wanna know what it is? 3+3=… wait for it…

6

OMFG you literary mastermind of our generation. Please tell me another grand-master fuck head.

You know when “wait for it” is a proper choice in building suspense? Never. That’s right. I never want to be told to “wait for it” when you’re on the cusp of giving me information I potentially want to hear. If you want to tell a really good story or anecdote, build your own suspense by adding some drama or inserting some emotions or thoughts. Maybe try using a Red Herring or a twist ending.

Fuck…. wait for it… you.

Pun [Un]intended

You made a witty relation with a word or phrase. It would have been funny if you didn’t have to climb upon your high horse and tell us “By the way, what I just said was an intelligent pun. There may or may not have been intent, considering my immense intellect didn’t have time to give inflection on the pun in question.” I think what pisses me off the most is when people say “No pun intended” and then smirk as if there could have been a pun at play, but they decided to blow their whistle and let their captive audience know, instead, there was no fun intended.

The reasons puns are so much fun is the intended response. We aim to please those who don’t solely rely on fart jokes, and yet take pleasure from deducing double-entendres from our word-play. The moment someone says “no pun intended” it takes out all of the fun. Even ironically, the phrase is lackadaisical and short-sighted. Do me a favor and take 2 seconds to deviate from this popular meme. The moment your audience gets the pun and you didn’t say “HURR, NO PUN INTENDED”, the reaction you get will be stronger and more sincere.