Santa, the guy who knows exactly the right gift for everyone on his route, delivered to me the book you see over there. “The Grouchy Grammarian.” As readers of this series would expect, I’m gratified.
To become grouchy is increasingly easy as one ages and that’s something I’ve done convincingly. To be considered a grammarian is flattering but not accurate in my case. I’m more of an observer of usage in our culture and find it puzzling.
Sure there are the common careless misuses of their, there, and they’re, you’re and your, its and it’s. But it’s the puffy use of extra words and shopworn cliches that pain me.
Let’s share the misery here. I don’t want to ail alone.
What is the difference between “price” and “price point?” Marketers refer to a product’s price point. Does that make any difference to the buyer? Or is the use of the extraneous “point” intended to make the speaker sound more hip? Drop it.
Same complaint about the military’s insistence on referring to a weapon as a “weapon system.” An aircraft carrier is a weapon -- a big, expensive one to be sure -- but a weapon nonetheless.
Thunderstorm activity? How is that different from a thunderstorm. Weather conditions? Weather is a collection of atmospheric conditions. So weather conditions would be atmospheric conditions conditions.
Some language corruptions are caused by misunderstandings of the meaning of words. Even simple words. Take “both” and “each.” They’re not synonymous. A recent video I watched said that a Boeing 737 has its “two engines under both wings.” That’d be four engines. The narrator meant an engine under each wing.
The word “number” has about disappeared. You’ll see a report that “there was a large amount of people at the game.” What is the unit of measure for amounts of people? Pounds? Kilograms? Square yards? Cubits? It’s number of people. Less and fewer have lost their distinction. We were taught that less was used when referring to amounts. Fewer to numbers. We got less rain in April than we did in May. There were fewer days of rain in April than in May.
How about this one. “Mr. Jones died last week in Littleville. He was a former teacher at Applecore High School.” If he was a former teacher is he one again? And how likely is it that they would hire a deceased former teacher?
I don’t know how “home in” (like what a pigeon does) became “hone in.”
But the biggest modern annoyance caused by language abuse these days comes from sports broadcasting. Consider: “Billy, that quarterback put too much air under that pass.” Well, nonsense. There’s no compressor on the field from which a QB could inject any, let alone too much, air under a football. The first use of this attempt at being colorful may have been amusing but within a few days it became a weary cliche used by all playby play announcers. Drop it. His pass was too high.
Or “the quarterback used his feet on that play.” Of course he did. He uses his feet on every play. What’s wrong with “he ran for the first down.”
There’s a play in football in which the QB passes to a receiver who had stopped abruptly and turned back toward the passer. That pattern is called a “hook” originally a “buttonhook” because his track takes the shape of a hook. The receiver then tosses the ball to a trailing teammate, making sure that this toss is backward. Such a toss is called a “lateral.”
The whole play is termed by many announcers to be a “hook and ladder.” Hook and ladder. Now, have you ever seen a firetruck on the field during play at any level of football? I don’t think you or the announcer has.
The play, of course, is a “hook and lateral.”
Yet the corruption has become the standard as have so many in our besieged language. Nevertheless I remain a lonely defender of the English that was taught to me by conscientious teachers at Ind 696 those decades ago.
And thanks, Santa. Yooda best.
Doug Luthanen grew up in Ely and graduated from Memorial High School in 1967. He wrote a weekly viewpoint column for the Northwest Arkansas Times for four years and is an occasional contributor to The Ely Echo.
