A little back story if you have not seen the previous years’ videos, the basic premise is that men will (and have, according to the videos) do anything in order to attend the women-only conference, just because of how good it is.

Enjoy!

Friday Night:

Saturday:

We had a fantastic turnout and everyone loved Pi Day (despite the inherent nerdiness of it). Our secretary pointed out that hardly anyone brings food for our monthly birthday day, and yet nearly everyone participated in Pi Day. We even got to meet people from different departments in the building (news of pie spreads fast!). Overall it gave everyone a chance to take a short break from the normal day and socialize. What a fun day! We’re considering having our next food get-together be a taco day on May 5th and having people bring individual ingredients. I call guacamole!

Here are a couple pictures I took today. I would have taken more, but I was too busy being a hostess and stuffing my face. In the first picture you can see our humble setup, and the second picture is for those of you who read my first post on Pi Day and said “Eeew! Avocado in pie??”

Technically Pi Day is celebrated on 3/14 at 1:59 PM, but in this case that would fall on Saturday (and who would come in to work on a Saturday just for pie?). Thus, we’re celebrating it today and so far we’ve been amazed at how many people brought pie! We’ve got pumpkin, pecan, chocolate, cherry, apple, lemon, and peach to name a few. And I just heard over the cubicle wall that at least four more pies are on their way.

But wait a minute! I shouldn’t be eating PIE if I’m eating raw. Pies are filled with white sugar and white flour and are cooked! The aforementioned chocolate pie (pictured below) is one I made…and it is raw! It is called Raw Chocolate Pie, and it is made with avocado and cocoa. You wouldn’t know it by the taste; it is the creamiest, smoothest, most chocolatey chocolate mousse. A big thanks to Ryan for the nice Pi symbol on the top!

My first issue is with the word that describes people or things waiting in line: queue. In just the last month I have seen it spelled “cue,” as in the cue ball in pool, “que,” as in “what?” in Spanish, or as in the abbreviation for Quebec. I’m afraid that I take this one personally because I use queueing theory frequently to solve scheduling problems in order to reduce waiting times. Here in America, we say “I’m gonna get in line,” while in England, they say “I’m going to join the queue.”

One mistake that makes me snicker out loud sometimes is when “literally” is used instead of “figuratively.” Remember that old MADtv sketch where the couple used the word literally in every sentence? No? Too bad, we couldn’t find the video. According to linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, “In 1909, Ambrose Bierce commented, ‘It is bad enough to exaggerate, but to affirm the truth of the exaggeration is intolerable.’” You’re not literally bored as a fence post from reading this, you’re figuratively bored as a fence post. See?

Mountains have peaks, as do meringues and electricity usage. If someone is really interested in something, then their interest is piqued, meaning “to excite or arouse,” as in curiosity. It is from the French word, piquer, meaning “to prick.” It may be interesting to note that the words “piquant” (French for spicy or “pleasantly tart”) and “picante” (Spanish, as in the sauce) also share the same common Latin ancestor–piccare. So when something gets your attention, it “arouses” (piques) your attention, not “takes your attention to its limit” (peaks).

What about you? What grammar oddities have literally piqued your interest? Queue up below.

QuikTrip has a hot dog counter with the buns in warmer drawers underneath. The drawers are labeled with the sticker seen in this picture. As I was driving to work I saw a truck with one of these stickers on its tail gate!