Yesterday I was reading a blog and came across a sentence about an “alternate lifestyle.”  No doubt, the writer meant “alternative lifestyle.” Alternate in that context would mean rotating or taking turns; alternative, used with lifestyle, means an unconventional or nontraditional choice.

 

But because I really can’t help it, I started imagining a lifestyle where two people alternate.

 

“Okay, honey, now you are me, and I am you.”

 

“Whee, that was fun, now I’m me, and you’re you!”

 

“Let’s try it again.”

 

“Whoa, this alternate lifestyle is life-changing!”

 

After I amused myself for a while, I checked out the author of the blog. It was I, which is good grammar but it sounds wrong because “me” is what we always hear.

 

Yes, I was the blogger who typed alternate instead of alternative. The same blogger who is sometimes a slug, sometimes the Texan Word Slinger, sometimes a mouseburger, and sometimes other personas yet to be revealed. That may be the true “alternate lifestyle,” although maybe it’s multiple personality disorder. (I’ll leave the resolution of that argument to the slug and The Texan Word Slinger.)

 

As you know, from this previous post, I suffer from blog blindness. It’s chronic, intermittent, non-life threatening (so far), and incurable. Yesterday, I had an acute flare-up. So bad, in fact, that I needed intervention.

I needed an IV.

 

I corrected the problem last night, right after I got the IV: Alternate + IV = Alternative.