A little rant

  As some of you out there know I enjoy reading and because of that I have become a bit of a stickler for the English language. I am very much against changing the meaning of some words to suit today's societal values. I will consult my Concise Oxford Dictionary to support my argument. I'll give some examples.
  The first one has been driving me nuts for years. It was about 10 years ago when I started hearing the pronunciation of the planet Uranus change. It was pronounced for hundreds of years with the long "a" sound but I suppose some idiot out there was offended because 10 year old kids were making jokes about your anus so they decided to change the sound of it. I am not sure but I believe it may have started at the BBC but don't quote me on that. I am sure that if I ever meet the twit I will look him (or her) straight in the eye and say uranasshole. Seems fitting doesn't it.
  The second example is the use of the word pregnant. My Oxford describes pregnant as a female having developing children which was always my understanding of the word. In the past decade I have heard the word used by couples who now say "we're pregnant". I have a pretty good idea why this change has been made but I will reserve comment other than to say there are a lot of men out there who need to grow a pair. I think what should be said is "Yahoo, my wife is pregnant, I have a DD for the next 5 or 6 months". I'm all for equality of the sexes but she is pregnant and you helped. Period.
  The third example is the word marriage. Oxford defines it as a union between a man and a woman. Today the word marriage is also used to describe gay unions which drives me nuts because that is simply not what the word has meant for hundreds of years. I think the perfect word to define gay marriage should be garriage, a combination of the two words. It perfectly describes the union as the same but different as well. When questioned about their relationship a gay couple could say they were garried............................after some sober second thought...............................forget everything I have said about a new word for gay marriage.............you're getting very sleepy........forget......forget.