Pet Pigs and Peeves

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The stem cell of this cartoon came from another occasional collaborator and dear, dear friend, Richard "Dick" Cabeza. I forgot what his original picture and caption were, but they were similar and I tweaked them into this delectable dealybobber.

This idea appeals to me because it was fun to render the pigs in disguises as they prepare to wreak havoc, but also because of my interest in animal rights, although that by itself would not have been enough to get me to bite on this gag. (so to speak)

Entirely off the subject of this cartoon, "wreak havoc" is one of the most frequently mispronounced terms in modern English. It seems people almost invariably say "wreck" havoc. I can understand the confusion, since "havoc" is often the result of "wrecking," but that isn't the correct phrase. Since ours is a living language (thank god, speaking a dead language is just creepy) it is only a matter of time before "wrecking havoc" will be considered correct. Which, as grammar catastrophes go, isn't such a bad thing. At least it basically means the same thing.

What's much worse is the changing of the term "couldn't care less." The overwhelming majority of Americans say "could care less" when, in fact, they mean "couldn't." This change is regrettable, because it means the opposite of what the speaker intends. Here's how:
If you care about something or someone, like, say, your grandmother or smoking pot, you "could" care less. That is to say, if you care, it is possible to care less.

If you care nothing about something or someone, you could not care less than you already do. Hence, you couldn't care less whether Dick Cheney ever gets out of jail. Just remember: when you're tempted to use this phrase in the common way, use "couldn't".

If that still doesn't make sense, perhaps you could care less about smoking pot, and probably should.