Sometimes I find the English language annoying.

I didn't catch this bug. It caught me.

Believe me, I have caught lots of bugs. I caught them in fields and in trees and in ponds and all sorts of places when I was a little kid.

Bugs and frogs - I caught plenty of both - as well as lizards and toads and all manner of creatures incapable of fighting back. but I digress.

I caught hundreds of bugs while studying entomology in university many, many years ago (long enough now, that I could easily add one more "many" without fearing accusations of exaggeration).

It may seem the same, within the context of the English language and the way we normally use it, but there's a significant difference between catching bugs and getting caught by a bug.

The difference boils down to who feels good about the catching.

Ask a bug collector or entomologist - or even an exterminator - and they'll all agree that, when you (the human, in this catch phrase) catch a bug, it generally feels pretty good.

That's especially true when it's a bug you've been specifically hunting for some time: a special butterfly, a particular sphecoid wasp, one of the rarer carabid beetles. but I am digressing once again.

In any case, it surely doesn't feel bad at all to catch a bug (for us, as the catchers, that is - the bugs probably aren't as happy about being pinned to a piece of cardboard and being euthanized with ether).

Conversely, it never feels good when a bug catches you.

Likewise, I find it annoying when people suggest they have something that is good for a bug that is wreaking havoc with my physiological processes.

I know I tend to be more easily annoying while in the grips of a particularly nasty bug such as the one that has grabbed hold of me this past little while.

But I do not want something that is good for a bug that is running roughshod over my flagging constitution (which is significantly different from a constitutional flag - like the Red Maple Leaf whose adoption by Canada's parliament is celebrated annually, albeit rather quietly this year, on Feb. 15, which was last Friday. but I am digressing yet again).

And neither would you want something that is good for your bug, I'll bet you three bugs and lizard.

When you are being assaulted by a bug, you would be a fool to want something that is good for the bug. You want something that is bad for the bug. You want something that is good for you. Clarity, folks.

It's something that is too often missing from our language.

And it is something that has been missing from my nasal passages for far too long.

Indeed, I'll accept any reasonable suggestions for things that may be bad for the bug that has caught me.

And while I am venting my annoyance over the noisome bug that is tromping all over my personal concept of paradise, I notice that the provincial government has proudly proclaimed that it has amended the Wildlife Act to make hunting "more accessible" to youth.

Hunting and using guns is now easier than ever for kids as early as age 10.

That's what we need, in this day and age of mass murders and the Great American Gun Debate raging south of the border: more kids with more guns.

Hey! Can anybody shoot this bug for me?

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