Fumin’, a-fussin’ and a-fightin’
I’m so upset I might start bitin’
Don’t like those grammar-killers I hear all day
If they’d clean up their act I’d be okay
Being a civilized—well, mostly civilized—person, I don’t make a habit of biting those whose misuse of English offends me. However, I do rail, scream, and protest audibly, much to my husband’s eye-rolling boredom, even though I know those idiots on the telly can’t hear me.
Particularly offensive is the collection of bleached blondes on one of our local television stations, an affiliate of the ABC network. Two of them appear to be meteorologists, although with their shoulder-length, straight hair and skin-tight clothes they’re indistinguishable from the other bleached blondes.
The weather wenches particularly set my teeth on edge. “Never use one word when three or four will do,” must have been their major at Whither-the-Weather U. First of all, they are quite unable to pronounce the word “wintry.” Oh, no, to them it’s wintery.
Secondly, they are constitutionally unable to utter a sentence as simple as the following: “It’s going to rain at noon tomorrow.” Oh, no! They say, “Tomorrow there will be a rain event at the noon hour.”
“Noon” is an hour? Well, Lord love a duck! I’d thought it was an aroma, a color, a tangible object, anything but a time of day. They also say “the three o’clock hour,” “the nine o’clock hour,” and "the midnight hour." Moreover, we never have “snow": according to the weather wenches, “We will experience a snow event.”
I do wish I could insert a cake of Lifebuoy soap into their mouths à la “A Christmas Story” until they learn to say “noon,” “rain,” and “snow.”
Turning to another source of cheek-purpling, eye-bulging enragement, please permit me to gritch about a certain evening news broadcast. ABC’s “World News Tonight” with “Diane Sawyer“ (as the announcer throatily emphasizes her name) is particularly nauseating with respect to catch-phrases. “America’s heartland” means those nice Plains states rather than those liberal blue East and West Coasts. One supposes “World News Tonight” regards the denizens of the Coasts as heartless.
One of Ms. Sawyer’s most egregious catch-phrases is “America Strong.” That makes me want to retch because it doesn 't make sense. Where's the verb? She uses “reach out,” “come together,” and “find closure” to the point of nausea. What’s that, you say? I could just stop watching that program? Oh, but you see, it’s addictive, like wossname. One watches to see what fresh horrors will occur. I know I should stop, I’ve tried to stop, but somehow, I keep doing it again.
With regard to the words “forbidding” and “foreboding,” no one gets these two right except English teachers and editors. “Forbidding” is an adjective, “foreboding” a noun, as in the following examples:
She was a grim, gray-haired woman of forbidding aspect.
As she approached the ruined castle she had a strong sense of foreboding.
Other gripes are as follows:
“Caramel,” a lovely-sounding word when pronounced correctly, is so universally mispronounced as “karmel” it’s not even funny.
When did standing in line become standing on line? To me “on line” is a predicate adjective, as in, “I spent the whole evening on line.” We all know what that means.
When did “flyer” become “flier”? When The Washington Post decided it was time to change the spelling? Dumb clucks. I suppose next we’ll be buying “clothes driers” rather than “clothes dryers.”
When did “jew-el-ry” become “joo-la-ry”? Was it the same day that “real-tor” became “ree-la-tor”?
No one is “tanned” any more, they’re now “tan,” which is a noun, not an adjective.
The past perfect is DEAD, but alas, no one let me know. “If I didn’t see the robber the police wouldn’t be able to catch him.” OMG! That makes me want to yank out my gray corkscrew curls by the roots. (No wonder I look so peculiar.)
Hardly anyone knows how to spell “pharaoh” or even “whoa,” for that matter. Same with “yay,” which is an exclamation of delight. Now people spell it “yea,” which of course is archaic for "yes," although pronounced the same way as "yay," or as “yeah,” which is a completely different word, pronounced differently, meaning “yes.”
Let’s not even get into “reign” and “rein,” “lose or loose,” or “may and might.” They’ve been done to death. Besides, I might start crying.
As for the word “snuck,” it should be used only if one is composing a limerick in which the word “f**k” figures largely. The correct word is “sneaked,” as in, “I sneaked past the box office and therefore saw the movie free of charge.”
“Butt” is an ugly, vulgar word for posterior, bottom, or derrière. “Boobs” are not even to be thought of: the very word denigrates the female sex. Why is it so difficult for some people to say the word “breasts”? I suppose it’s because of the same stupidity that regards a woman nursing a baby in public as offensive, whereas the sight of a Hollywood starlet’s mammary glands hanging out of her strapless evening gown is considered quite acceptable.
Yes, I am a cantankerous old lady. Yes, it feels good to vent. Thanks for reading this rant if you’ve stayed with me so far. May your coffee be both aromatic and delicious and may unpolluted rain descend gently on your non-GMO crops.
Good night.