In Which I Finally Weigh In On The Issue That Will Define A Generation

I'm taking a stand. (What? Hayley - taking a stand? On an issue, no less? Nooo...).
Yes, I'm taking a stand against using the word random (except in completely legitimate, circumstances, which are nearly always scientific in nature, such as calculating the random sample error). Anyhow, the use of the word random has gotten out of control, has been for years now. It's time that we, as a thinking, literate people (am I giving us the benefit of the doubt?) start to stretch our imaginations a bit wider in attempting to describe a set of occurrences (or, for that matter, a single occurrence). So the next time someone says something that seems to come from nowhere, instead of describing that occurrence as random, describe it as chance, accidental, haphazard, unplanned, casual, indiscriminate, unmethodical, arbitrary, erratic. Maybe some of them won't work in the context, but I assure you that random does not fit into every context in which it is used. So please, for the love of all things sacred, stop describing everything as random.

(Note, I bet a lot of people who use the term random are also believers in fate. I have no empirical evidence for making such a claim, I'm just assuming from the number of people I assume to hold a belief in such a concept. Therefore, I find it odd that so many people who believe in fate also believe that so many occurrences are random. I'm sorry, but in this instance, we can't have our cake and eat it too.)