*I really hate asterisks. They are seriously getting abused. I am not really sure who started them. I suspect it was someone who, back when we had actual typewriters, made a mistake and left something out in the middle of the page.
This entrepreneurial person probably thought, “crud, now what am I going to do? I don’t want to re-type the whole page and my deadline is only minutes away!” Ta da! The asterisk enters the picture. Just draw in a little star looking symbol at the end of the word and than throw in the forgotten words at the bottom of the page. Genius! Well until other people got a hold of the asterisk and began to abuse its original intent.
For starters, the asterisk is now a method to warn people of impending doom. These were the people we used to successfully wean out of humanity and strengthen the herd. You know the people from the shallow end of the gene pool that actually thought you could take a blow dryer in to the bathtub, didn’t realize coffee may be “hot”, or that you shouldn’t put your hand in the toaster? Yep, those are the people that get some sort of an asterisk.
In the above case, it is almost as if the asterisk carries with it the implied words…
“*No one is really stupid enough to do this, but since we haven’t met you personally and we have clearly noticed a worldwide breakdown in natural selection, we better add some additional verbiage that covers our butts in the event you use this product in some stupid ass way.”
The other groups abusing the asterisk are the attorneys that feel the need to further clarify some stupid point. These are points no one in the world cared about. Take for instance the picture from my water bottle (below). Apparently my water bottle now comes with an easier to open top. Great, I am done. No further explanation is necessary. I don’t need Power Point, pie charts, or a weekend training retreat. What I also don’t need is an asterisk telling me this easier to open cap is compared to the previous cap. Really? Wow! And here I thought it was easier to open than say, a duck*.
*Ok, ducks are not really easy to open so it really doesn’t make my point of never using asterisks to complete some annoying point…or does it?
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I suppose this is where you look for some witty insights to my mind. A "bio" of sorts. Here is the deal... I ride motorcycles, smoke cigars, golf, kayak, fly, race my car through the mountains, write (a lot), and travel extensively. I am almost old enough not to care what other people think about me...almost. ~ Godfather
Ahem I tend to disagree*
I find that ducks can’t be that hard to open. The not so easy part is chasing down the duck, catching him and holding him still so that you may open the duck. Slippery little bastards are faster than they look!
*the disagreement noted above strictly references the duck-opening ability, not the overall point. Just in case you were too busy trying to figure out optimum pouring temps for coffee in your lap, or busy blow drying your hair in the tub to not notice where the exact disagreement occurred. That will be all now. No, really, you can go away now.