To Have and Have Not

Having lived just long enough to have gained the appreciation the art of complaining, I would like to have a minute of your time to bitch about having to listen to certain individual’s overuse of the word “have.” Given there are certain situations in which said word is needed, rarely should that ever be in place of a verb. It is nothing more than sheer grammatical laziness or a conversational nightmare. Listening to some continually use it in place of a millions of more suitable action words is mind numbingly insulting and makes me want to beat them senseless with a college thesaurus.

So in the spirit of conciliatory, non-bludgeoning, peace I would like to offer the following corrections to a few simple sentences so that we can all treat each other with a bit more linguistic civility:

Lazy: I’m having breakfast.
Better: I’m eating breakfast.

Lazy: I have a new phone.
Better: I just purchased/received a new phone.

Lazy: Have a seat.
Better: Please take a seat.

Lazy: I have had enough of this.
Better: No, you haven’t.

Now let’s all bask in the glory of simple, honest language that conveys a message without resorting to unnecessary substitutions.

Feel free to now have at me.