Opuscula “In” is in, “Into” is out

WHEN I WAS A YOUNG LAD, Back when Hector was a pup¹, the difference between “in” and “into” was explained thusly:

Three boys were swimming in the creek.
A fourth boy jumped into the creek to swim with them.

I cannot recall the last time I read – or heard – “into” correctly used.

Famous authors infamously misuse the word “in” when the word they should have used is “into.”

Perhaps their English is different than mine.

Perhaps misuse of “in” is an acceptable Fowler-ism².

Or, perhaps, it simply is a matter of being too lazy to teach – and learn – “proper” English.

American English – more correctly U.S. English since Canada is very much “American” being on the North American continent – is a long-time victim of Madison Avenue (i.e., advertising) and now of smart phones and limited character text messages that encourage (force?) use of abbreviations and emoticons/emojis. (Yes, Virginia, there ARE differences between U.S. and Canadian English.)

Admittedly some abbreviations are better than keying or saying the words they represent. SNAFU and WTF are two that immediately come to mind.

OVER THE LINGUISTIC RAINBOW

Everything is “over” or “under” when it should be “more than” or “less than.”

Tv had made the ignorant masses so accustomed to the misuse of over and under that the only time anyone hears or reads “greater than” (>) or “less than” (<) is when the subject relates to computers.

I am driven “bonkers” every time I hear “Under than $200” – or any amount – when the “under” is 1¢: $199.99.

Although I admit it is picayunish, the U.S. does NOT have “pennies.” The Brits have pennies and the Germans have pennies. The U.S. has cents (despite, or in spite of, the long ago “penny post card”.)

One red cent. There is no obvious link between “cents” – which due to their value are on life support – and “sense” (common or otherwise) which our politicians on both side of the aisle seem to shun like a plague. FYI: President Lincoln’s profile does NOT appear on all one cent coins.

According to the tv talking heads (and their never-identified writers), something might be terribly unique.” The only thing “terrible” about “terribly unique” is the “terrible” part. Unique, as are a few other words, is not modifiable. Something is unique or it is not. Period. Full stop.

My Spouse, who has English as her fourth language is so accustomed to my screams of outrage when I hear a modified unique (e.g., most unique, very unique) she often beats me to the punch.

A BAD SPEL^cq

Back in the day, grammar/primary/elementary school scholars – weren’t we all? – were taught to “spell a word as it sounds. Today, spelling seems to have reverted to Shakespearean times. Rather than moving on from phonetic spelling to correct or “standard” spelling our ritin has bekom fonetik again, largely thanks to the shorthand of electronic media.

Thanks to “electronic media,” fewer and fewer people read. Granted, there are those who borrow or buy e-books, but reading paper books is almost passe’. (I’m a geezer and a frequenter of my Local Lending Library.)

The consequences of NOT reading are (at least) two-fold.

1. Small vocabularies and
2. Lousy speleng^cq

(If truth be known, I’m dependent on the word processor’s spell check.)

Spelling became a “lost art” years ago. As a reporter in a small town, I was allowed to read some collegians’ appeals to the local court to forgive certain misdemeanors. The appeals were laughable, at least to the judge and to this scrivener. The errors might have been expected from a third grade student, but from a college sophomore? Inexcusable.

I don’t expect everyone to be a Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. or Wm. F. Buckley Jr., political opposites but sharing a love – and knowledge of – the English language.

An aside. I have never met anyone named “Senior.” There may be a person whose given or family name is “Senior,” but we have yet to meet. Juniors I’ve know aplenty, and a few with numbers after their surname. Traditionally, when the senior person dies, the “junior” is dropped from the son’s name.

Merriam-Webster offers a daily email with a “Word of the Day.” Subscriptions are free. It’s not as good as reading a book and learning a new word by looking it up in an Unabridged or even on-line, but it’s a start to vocabulary building.

I once worked with a fellow I nicknamed “Third Definition Gregory.” Mr. Gregory was fond of using a common word’s third definition (assuming here was one). I was forced on more than one occasion to resort to the Unabridged. Unfortunately for the world, “Third Definition” became a PR flack in the City-East (NYC) and his words were lost in a puff of fluff.

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Sources

1. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sin1.htm

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwFVOU3zkRc

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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