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| Raven Lake Fathoms (moderate) |
I made use of Raven Lake Fathoms↑ this morning to smooth out the rough edges of my frustration.
The bad news is that I still plan to vent a bit, the good news is that it will be considerably more moderate in tone than it might have been. :)
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| Raven Lake Fathoms (moderate) |
I love language. I enjoy well written books of all kinds and delight in intelligent and erudite speech. I’m not foolish enough to believe that language should be static or unchanging, however, there are some mutations that are simply painful.
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| Raven Lake Fathoms (moderate) |
I might cringe as nouns become verbs (e.g., to ‘action’ something), or verbs morph into nouns (e.g., ‘deliverable”), but that’s just progress. Changing a noun into an adjective can hurt those of us who remember simpler days. I won’t fight it, but “it’s so fun” will always sound like fingernails on a blackboard.
What is completely unacceptable is the constant use of a word which means something totally different than what you are trying to say.
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| Raven Lake Fathoms (moderate) |
For some reason even reasonable, articulate, and educated individuals have difficulty with the word “descendant”. Hearing it used incorrectly on the news the other night (which was the 5th or 6th time I’d heard/seen it in some venue or other in the past two weeks) was the last straw.
Unless you are a 480 year old vampire your descendants did not come over on the Mayflower or do anything else in history. On the other hand, if you wish to refer to your ancestors I’ll pay attention. For those who have difficulty remembering the difference – a comes before d. Your ancestors came before you, your descendants will follow.
Sheesh.
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| Raven Lake Fathoms (moderate) |
Serene Fairey
/ September 18, 2012I have also noticed that a lot of book and newspaper publishers are using spell check these days instead of a real human editor. Or, if the editor was human, they need to go back to school. And I think that professional television news people should be held accountable for learning how to pronounce common Names and Places correctly. Is that too much to ask?
honourmcmillan
/ September 18, 2012these days – apparently it is :(
Dividni Shostakovich
/ September 19, 2012No less cringeworthy, some hosts of classical music shows on the radio mispronounce well-known composers’ names…. How do these people get hired??
honourmcmillan
/ September 19, 2012Why don’t the producers at least educate them?
I can remember as a child when a Canadian named Gaetan Boucher (pron. gaytan booshay) won an olympic medal, the sportscaster called him “Getten Booshur”. He was schooled, hard, and in public. Even the audience must be dumbing down.