Speeding To Whatever.

"How does a $200,000 speeding ticket grab you? For driving a mere 25 mph over the limit? Well, we're not talking about the U.S. -- this world-record speeding fine was levied in Finland"

That is the first paragraph of an article that you can read at the following link:

http://autos.aol.com/article/highest-speeding-fines

Other highlights of the article are that in Canada speeding tickets can cost up to twenty-five grand. In England speeding tickets can reach eight grand. In Norway ten percent of your income. In Ireland they can reach $2,700. In France, Switzerland, Italy the speeding tickets can reach $2,100.

The United States? The highest Fines are twenty-five hundred smackers. Drivers clocked at high speeds in Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire all are liable to be fined up to $1000 for their actions. Drivers clocked at speeds deemed unsafe in Michigan, New Jersey and Texas all are subject to a second fine being imposed a year later that often can tally more than the original $1000 once court costs are included.

Now that we are all going to slow down in our cars once we get out of the cars we need to speak slower and reconsider some words in the English language that we use daily.

Pollsters at the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., college surveyed 938 U.S. adults by telephone Aug. 3-Aug 6. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points. The five choices included were chosen by people at the poll discussing what popular words and phrases might be considered especially annoying. As the most annoying word whatever with forty-seven percent easily beat out "you know," which especially grated a quarter of respondents. The other annoying contenders were "anyway" (at 7 percent), "it is what it is" (11 percent) and "at the end of the day" (2 percent).

I don't agree with the poll. This is how I am ranking them: You Know (not until you told me and if I do know there is no need to tell me), At the end of the day (I don't want to wait that long), anyways (plural, I am OK with it in singular form), whatever is fourth on my list, and the one that bothers me the least is "it is what it is."

The questions of the day, does the cost of speeding tickets in some countries surprise you? Would people stop speeding if we had the outrageous fines other countries do? And what phrase bothers you the most? The least? Whatever,you know I'd like to hear your opinion anyway because it is what it is.

TODAY'S TRIVIA:

Yesterday's answer: Ernest Hemmingway's third wife and journalist, Martha Gellhorn

Today's Who Am 1?

My nickname will bring to mind a famous religious song. A Navy destroyer is named after me. I was born in 1906. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics in 1928 and pursued my graduate education at Yale University, where I received a Master's degree. I taught mathematics at Vassar in 1931, and by 1941 I was an associate professor. I married my husband in 1930 and divorced him in 1945. I earned a PHD from Yale in 1934, graduating with honor. In 1938, I obtained a leave of absence from Vassar and was sworn in to the United States Navy Reserve, one of many women to volunteer to serve in the WAVES. I reported in December and trained at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. I graduated first in my class in 1944, and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University as a Lieutenant, junior grade. My request to transfer to the regular Navy at the end of the war was declined due to my age (38). I continued to serve in the United States Navy Reserve. From 1967 to 1977, I served as the director of the Navy Programming Languages Group in the Navy's Office of Information Systems Planning and was promoted to the rank of Captain in 1973. I retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of Commander at the end of 1966. I was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six-month period that turned into an indefinite assignment. I again retired in 1971 but was asked to return to active duty again in 1972. I was promoted to Captain in 1973. In.1983 due to a joint resolution in the House of Representatives I was promoted to Commodore. In 1985, the rank of Commodore was renamed Rear Admiral, Lower Half. I retired (involuntarily) from the Navy in 1986. At a celebration held in Boston on the USS Constitution to celebrate my retirement, I was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest non-combat award possible by the Department of Defense. At the moment of my retirement, I was the oldest officer in the United States Navy, and aboard the oldest ship in the United States Navy. I was laid to rest with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery in 1992. Before my death I became the first person from the United States and the first woman of any nationality to be made a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. There is a building named after me at the Naval Academy. The famous quotation "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission" is often attributed to me as is the quote, "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for." Who Am I?