Occasionally I feel the need to blow off some steam. Today is one of those occasions.
A friend once told me that editors are guardians of the language. Someone certainly needs to be—look what is happening to the world of communication.
Have you noticed that everyone is advised to “do research” now? No one I know is actually conducting experiments to learn what works or interviewing witnesses to learn what is true. Instead, we cruise through the internet, looking for opinions and ratings. How did we learn about products, services, current events in the olden days??
When did people stop being crazy about things, or simply enthusiastic, and become “passionate” about whatever topic they are pursuing? Did everyone read the same marketing material, the instruction manual on how to present oneself as sincere, earnest, and genuine? Someone has said that the secret to success is sincerity, and once you learn to fake that, you’ve got it made. Now it seems the secret to success is to declare that one is “passionate”.
When did giving become “gifting”? The verbization of nouns really bugs me. I personally do not “gift” people; I give to them.
Why did we stop graduating FROM places and now simply graduate places? Who started this ridiculousness?
When did “literally” lose its true meaning and come to mean its very opposite, “figuratively”? “I literally shot myself in the foot.” Oh yeah? How are you walking these days? Maybe you should have taken gun safety training more seriously.
Why do so many otherwise well-educated people insist on using the article “an” in front of the word “history”? It begins with a consonant, and the proper indefinite article is “a”. Really, I have noticed that those who have advanced degrees seem to be the most guilty of this. Maybe they think the real way to pronounce “history” is “istory”.
As you can see, I am passionate about language and have been since graduating high school, an historic event now; I literally have lost my mind doing research on the best ways of gifting you, my blog readers, with this vital information.
If you aren’t too disgusted by my diatribe, perhaps you will benefit from this information about the upcoming Holiday Gift Fair. (This is the proper use of the word “gift”.)
5 Comments
I never understood the phrase, “graduating high school” or “graduating college.” You graduate FROM a school, right? If you graduate a school, where does that school graduate to? Post graduate university?
The English language is weird.
The English language becomes weirder every year. “Ginormous”? Cut me a major break. (And that is also just weird—”cut me”?)
I think the phrase is, “Cut me some slack” which makes sense. If you’re bound too tightly, you need slack to breathe and escape the bonds with which you are wound. (Does that rhyme with “round” or “swoon?”)
I’m very grateful I never had to learn English as a second language. English as a first language is hard enough! Fortunately, Gramma Dixon was right there to dutifully correct my grammatical errors, for which I am grateful, as well!
Don’t get me started on how many people (especially young people) cannot put a sentence together without using the word “like” innumerable times. It is scary to think our world will be in the hands of those who don’t want to bother to think, who get all their information from the internet, and are unable to communicate their thoughts clearly.
Preach it, Sister!!
Comments are closed for this article!