Attempted Use of the English Language

Theodore M. Bernstein’s Watch Your Language was required reading when I was in journalism school. Bernstein, a longtime member of The New York Times’ editorial staff, cringed at such incorrect usage as “a new record” in sports pages (if an athlete set a record yesterday, it goes without saying that it’s a “new” benchmark), “speed up” in beauracracy (the verb “speed” alone says exactly the same thing) and “during the course of” in any form of reportage (“the course of” is unnecessary). He also challenged imprecise word usage. The noun “collision,” for instance, describes two or more objects, both of which are in motion, striking each other; if you drive your car into a tree, you are “crashing,” not “colliding.”

A couple of items I’ve heard recently would have brought out murderous instincts in Bernstein: “I generally like my job, but it has its downfalls.” (Try pitfalls.) “It was just so hard to understand the tremendousness of what was happening.” (Try shock, enormity, horror, scope, etc.)

Oh, why not let’s just rip up the bloody language and start all over? Let’s all be free to communicate as individuals, in our own ways, using whatever terminolgy feels good to us at the moment. If a listener seems confused by what we say, we’ll just scowl and bark, “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you understand English!?!”

Media pundits like to pick on politicians and other news targets for sounding dumb. Shame to say, some of those star anchors, reporters and commentators wax just as ignorant, IMHO.