Everyone has their own pet peeves.  I know I do.  The most interesting exchanges often occur when we find that our pet peeves clash with someone else’s–drama and hilarity (at least from the outside) often ensues.

One of my pet peeves are folks who take it upon themselves to restrict the use of language in a particular way, or who push for standardization in English by saying something is “wrong” or “incorrect,” when their judgment is actually quite subjective–as most are.  I recently had this button of mine pushed at a conference regarding evangelism.  During the introductory presentation the speaker made the comment that “I hope none of you are using the term ‘recessional,’ given the state of the economy, we have enough recession (funny enough)…” then he went on to say “seriously, unless you’re walking backwards, I hope none of you use it, because that’s what you would have to do to use the word correctly…”

Similarly, I had a classmate in seminary critique a bulletin of mine because I used the word “recessional.”  “We never recess in the church, because we never go backward, we only process, where ever we go because we’re going forward…”  I admit, that this struck me a bit like the only “advance to the rear” joke.  To both examples of pedantry, I add my own, backed up by the Oxford English Dictionary (which my wife claims is my mistress…):