Grammar gripe

I keep hearing people say “step foot”, for example there’s been a stupid ad on TV recently for some shampoo (or equally amazing product) that says something about looking like you “just stepped foot out of a salon”, or some equally remarkable drivel.

You don’t “step foot” somewhere. That is just plain stupid. You “set foot”… That’s “set” as in “to place into position”.

To “set foot” means to “step”, so when you say “step foot”, you’re saying “set foot foot”.

But if you’re one of those people who says “PIN number” or “ATM machine”, I guess “set foot foot” would fit right in.

Budget

Once again, the suits have released the new budget, and once again the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As usual, the highest ‘earners’ get the biggest tax cuts while average income earners receive only meager benefits that barely keep up with the high taxes incorporated within petrol prices. Surprise, surprise!

Why not give the middle income earners a decent tax cut instead of giving further breaks to those who need them the least?

Traffic

I went for a long drive down the coast. I really couldn’t be bothered outlining the details of where I went and what I got up to. It was all okay but nothing to rock my world. But I did have a few gripes with traffic conditions.

1. On the first day of driving, I got a stonechip right on the edge of the windscreen, which I couldn’t see from inside the car. But the following day, a large crack had spread across the glass, so now I have to get a new windscreen. And to think that it was the only stonechip I got after driving over 3000 kilometres.
2. What is it with roadworks? I understand that there are safety issues with driving too fast when there are workers on the road, but why do I have to slow down just so I can get a look at council workers having their 14th smoko break of the morning. And do I really need to slow down to 40km/h for 2km because there’s one big lawn mower on the side of the road? Of all the supposed ‘roadworks’ that I drove past/through, there was only one instance where any actual work was happening anywhere near the road!
3. You know those yellow signs that suggest a speed to safely go round a bend in the road? I really wish there was some consistency there! Some of them say 60 when 100 is completely safe with no fear of coming to grief whatsoever, yet others will recommend 90, but you feel like you’re about to leave the Earth’s gravitational pull.
4. Speed traps – Yep, the boys in blue are out in force this holiday season… they’re diligently staking out the bottom of hills, changes of speed limit zones, and long safe stretches of road where the only accidents that ever occur are ‘fender-benders’ during traffic jams to enact the full extent of revenue raising allowable by law. I would be really interested (and quite surprised) to see if there is any corelation at all between where speed traps are set up and where accidents actually occur. Sure, they’re just doing their job, and I know that finding my stolen bike doesn’t raise any revenue, but silly naive me thought that some obscure function of the police force was to solve crimes.