Year's Language Scofflaws 2015

Television newscasters seem to be leaders in poor usage of our language. Tonight I was listening to a news story about flooding in St. Louis. The reporter used the word “devastated” three times in the same report. Don’t these people have vocabularies or at least thesauri? My late father worked in broadcasting all his adult life. He often said that broadcasters have an obligation to speak correctly because they influence the nation. He was the original grammar police.

It’s not just the media. Over-used words. Decorated words. Altered words. Where is our language going? Here is my year end commentary on words that I have noticed with some pain. Our language is misused daily, especially in the media and everyday speech. Stay tuned. More words are coming up next, sponsored by Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4^th edition, which probably is already out of date.

Over-Used Words. 

Gotcha.  Generally this means I understand what you just said. I have not heard this on television news. People everywhere seem to be saying it.

Devastated, devastation. This is a popular word for scenes of destruction or desolation. I understand victims of unfortunate events using the word in interviews, but other people can use it less frequently.

So.  So has become a way to begin a sentence, especially a response to a question. It appears to replace well.  Example: So can we find another way to begin a sentence?

Decorated Words.

I call them decorated because they have been altered with added letters, which I call decorations that do not change the meaning of the words.

Towards is the same as toward. My dictionary defines towards as toward.

Amongst. My dictionary says it is a chiefly British variant of among. It means among.

Amidst. Unhistoric for amid.

Regards is used for regard, as “in regards to.” It is ok to say “as regards,” according to the dictionary, meaning concerning.

Anyways for anyway. The dictionary accepts this, but why bother?

Altered Words.

These are used to replace the original word.

Bemuse. Used for amuse, but they don’t mean the same thing. Amuse means to keep pleasantly or enjoyably occupied. Bemuse is to preoccupy or plunge into thought.

Alright. This means “all right.” The dictionary says it is a disputed spelling of “all right.”

Ginormous. Gigantic and enormous gave birth to this coming together. It isn’t in my dictionary although I hear it frequently.

Expression.

At the End of the Day.

Been there; done that. 

More Overused Words and Phrases

It’s time for an update on the year’s thesaurus-challenged words and expressions. Well, absolutely, there are plenty for everyone.  I am serving them up for you. If you don’t read my go-to list, I will be devastated. It’s a must-have.

1.       Good to go. I hear this on television, in stores and everywhere else. One would hope that people on television would be leaders in good usage, but they are just like everyone else. When something is finished for you, you are good to go. Even the highly educated Doctor Oz uses this expression.

2.       Absolutely. Why don’t people want to say “yes” when that is what they mean? On television interviews, I have heard people using “absolutely” instead of “yes” five times in one sentence. That’s not the only place.

3.       Go-to.  When something is good, it is a go-to thing. Woodman’s is the go-to place to buy food. Jesus is the go-to guy who will save your soul.  Go-to doesn’t seem to be restricted to a place. Sometimes go-to is related to must-have (see below).

4.       Way, shape or form. I hear it used with a negative thought. If we think something is incorrect or inappropriate, we reject it by saying we don’t agree with it in any way, shape or form. Come on, people. Think of another way to be emphatic.

5.       Devastated.  This word is used to express a spectrum of upset feelings. I am okay with people being devastated while in the middle of a hurricane or forest fire that takes away their homes, because destruction is part of devastation. However, other words exist to describe situations of destruction or heartbreak.  I don’t deny the emotion. I protest the one word used to describe them all.

6.       Back in the day. Many people use this word to describe the past. One of my daughters uses it.

7.       Must-have. Related to Go-to. Television commercials are especially guilty of using this expression. The must-have outfits and shoes are at the mall.

8.       Buzz and buzzword. Buzzwords are all around us, maybe even on this list. The buzz is like gossip, or things we don’t need to know about celebrities but are told anyway.

9.       Up.  This is a superfluous word. How many people are serving up dinner? Back in the day, dinner was served without “up.”  We hang up the phone when we disconnect. Not every use of “up” is suspect. It’s used when the sentence is complete without it, and it is superfluous.

10.   Some acronyms, especially LOL, WTF, FAQ. Nuff said.

Bluephie's and Apostrophes

English teachers, rejoice. You have nothing to lose but your correcting pens.

This is about Bluephie’s Restaurant and Vodkatorium (www.bluephies.com). It’s not just the food, which is good. It’s the menu. The menu is an English teacher’s delight, or possibly nightmare. Every English teacher should print its online version and take it to school for his/her students to correct, by filling in the missing letters that are replaced with apostrophes, and by correcting the uses of small rather than capital letters. For me, this menu is a lesson in apostrophes. It’s also about capital letters, but that is secondary.

Bluephie’s lunch menu, in its zeal to appear informal and folksy, has given the lowly apostrophe a workout.  Examples are plentiful. “serve ‘em up.” “billy’s burger bar.” “today’s selections.” ol’ fashioned cooking.” “ Lots o’ shrimp.” “lots o’ shrimp.”  “honkin’ big tortilla.” “lil’ bites.” “that’s right.” “I’ll have that.” “big ol’ cake.”

The English language uses the apostrophe as a stand-in for letter omissions, as seen in the lunch menu. It is used to show correction, as in the name of the restaurant. It is a major workhorse for people who prefer to abridge their words. I give Bluephie’s good grades for over-using the punctuation mark correctly, although I am not sure about “lil’ bites.” Should it be “li’l’ bites?”

Some other uses of the apostrophe might be confusing. For example, Bluephie’s has a kids menu with no apostrophe on the online link. Might it be a personal menu for one kid, as a kid’s menu? Might it be for all the kids, as a kids’ menu? Bluephie’s doesn’t say. Plurals are a problem for a lot of people. Bluephie’s might have chosen to have a children’s menu rather than a kids menu. “Children” is plural, so the apostrophe goes before the final “s.” Fortunately, Bluephie’s seems to have avoided the “its” and “it’s” situation. They say, “That’s right,” and sidestep that issue. We English majors know that “it’s” means “it is,” and the possessive “its” has no apostrophe.

The Bluephie’s lunch menu uses hardly any capital letters. (More folksy fun?) Even “billy’s burger bar” refers to billy without the upper case. On the home page, not the menu, is the question, “Have you ‘ate’ today?” Actually, this one goes on to use “ate” with other words using “ate” such as “celebrate.”

I think I’ll go to billy’s burger bar for some ol’ fashioned cooking. I’ll try the honkin’ big tortilla and some big ol’ cake. I have one more question. What’s a vodkatorium?

Overused Words and Expressions

How many have you heard today? They're everywhere: in conversation, on television, in email and postal mail, and maybe in your dreams. Americans are fond of being unoriginal in their ways of speaking. Overused expressions are ubiquitous. Metaphorical speaking is popular.

Don't stop reading now, but stay online. We are the salt of the earth and will leave no stone unturned in our search for the Pandora's box of expressions. Just try to wrap your head around them and and relax. Here are my big five overused expressions for today.

(1) That said.  We used to say however or moreover. The first time I remember hearing it was in an Obama speech. Then everyone was saying it.

(2) Wrap my head around.  We used to understand something; now we wrap our heads around it. I even heard it in a sermon last Sunday in church.

(3) Green.  It seems to be about environmental friendliness. We now have green airplanes (fuel efficient), green architecture (made with environmentally friendly materials), green automobiles (using fewer fossil fuels), green technologies, and more. Today in my mail I received a flyer from a cleaning company that proclaimed, "Green is the new color of clean." Is a quiet home without noise green?

(4) Perfect storm. Once it was a crisis or a disaster. Now it is a perfect storm. The oil gusher in the gulf is today's perfect storm. It certainly is a disaster, and the problems of slowing it down are the perfect storm. I haven't heard tornadoes and hurricanes called perfect storms.

(5) Wake up call. When something blows up in our faces, or we experience sudden important changes of heart, we have wake up calls. They used to be insights for action.

We can describe an event such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with metaphors. Once BP was considered the salt of the earth, maybe even a green corporation, but now its executives are trying to leave no stone unturned in trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They have had their wake up call and are in the midst of the perfect storm. That said, they are trying to wrap their heads around this disaster as they give up their pipe dreams of uneventful, profitable drilling. There is no more pie in the sky for BP as it bites the bullet in its efforts to get back online. John D. Rockefeller will roll over in his grave with today's policy of drill, baby, drill.