Opuscula Who’s killing The language? Ignorant media

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WHEN I WAS IN THE NEWSPAPER BUSINESS — back when Gasoline Alley was fixing flivers — I considered it incumbent upon me to “educate” the reader.

The best way to accomplish this, I believed, was to use correct English language and grammar and to introduce new ideas — for example, the metric system.

I did not always succeed, but I tried.

 

 

THIS MORNING ON THE “NEWS” I heard and read on the tube that “Florida hospitals are busting at the seams.”

What is wrong with that?

I’m bursting to share with you what is wrong.

A “bust” is, according to Merriam-Webster.com

1: art : a sculptured representation of the upper part of the human figure including the head and neck and usually part of the shoulders and breast

2 : the upper part of the human torso between neck and waist especially : the breasts of a woman

Conversely, “burst” is defined by the same source as

1: to break open, apart, or into pieces usually from impact or from pressure from within

2a : to give way from an excess of emotion

b : to give vent suddenly to a repressed emotion burst i

3a : to emerge or spring suddenly

b : launch, plunge

4 : to be filled to the breaking point

As a print media reporter and editor, I suppose it is unfair to expect tv and radio news readers to have any command of the language. Most, I’m informed, have others write the words for them,, ergo, “news readers,” a/k/a “talking heads,” bobble or otherwise.

This is not a matter of University of Chicago/Harvard/GPO vs. Fowler. It is a matter correct use of the language.

 

Teachers cannot teach what they don’t know

Today’s media is not solely (only) to blame for the dreadful state of the language.

Advertising, with few exceptions, is a major contributor. (The exception that comes to mind is an old Winston cigarette commercial about the product’s “taste.”)

I covered courts in California (and elsewhere). One incident I remember was a letter from a collegian (at Chico State, if I recall correctly) who, trying to wiggle out of a traffic ticket wrote a largely unintelligible letter to the judge (who shared it with me as public record). The lad’s mistake: the judge loved the language even more than this scrivener.

Perhaps today’s teachers never learned BASIC English when they were in the primary and secondary grades.

If they don’t KNOW the subject, how can they TEACH the subject?

 

Very unique and other “fox paws”

My Spouse, who has English as her third or fourth language, used to compete with or children (before they grew up and moved out) on who would react fastest when some fool talking head said something was “very” or “most” unique.

The only modifier for “unique” is “almost.” Otherwise, something is, or is not, unique.

Again, from Merriam-Webster.com:

1: being the only one : sole

2a : being without a like or equal : unequaled

b : distinctively characteristic : peculiar sense 1

c : able to be distinguished from all others of its class or type

The last word in the list above, “type” brings to mind a lesson I learned early in my scholastic career.

Types OF, and Kinds OF are not acceptable in proper grammatical society. Rather, rework a sentence such as: There are many “types of” flowers to There are flowers of many types.

Yes, I understand that a former English prime minister and one-time war corespondent is said to have complained about English grammar, up with which I will not put. Still, critics believe he was an accomplished writer. Perhaps not on the order of Hubert Horatio Humphrey or William Francis Buckley, but of some renown.

Among the “fox paws” (faux pas) I most often encounter are misuse of over and under.

Over is above something. Over the rainbow.¹

Under is beneath something. Under the boardwalk.^{2a, 2b}

More than and greater than deal in quantities, measurements. Greater than 500 pounds; more than Mach 2.

Less than is the opposite of “more than and greater than.”

Far too many media mavins (from Hebrew “מבין” or person who understands, an expert) have a problem with “ly” as in “he acted quickly” that become “he acted quick.”

Granted, English is a “living language,” but I would posit that the media personalities and their writers are killing it.

“Professor ‘enry ‘iggings” of My Fair Lady³ nee’ Pygmalion⁴ a fame was correct when he loudly proclaimed: ”Why can’t the English learn to speak . . . the language?”

 

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Sources

1. Over: https://tinyurl.com/nhl8nch

2. Under: a - https://tinyurl.com/ycc7j8e8 b - Ecclesiastes קהלת 1:9

3. My Fair Lady: https://tinyurl.com/yapypcmh

4. Pygmalion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play)

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.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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