Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

English Is Fucked

It's nearing 11:30 p.m., and the western skyline is still being lighted by fireworks. Earlier, it was an amazing display of about 27 different places, maybe more, to the west at between 9:45 and 10:30 filling the horizon with color -- pretty cool from the top floor of our building and difficult to describe in words.

There was a television special about the design and path of the new interstate highway bridge that will, some day in the future, span the Cuyahoga River valley. A debate is raging about whether the state department of transportation has done an end-run around local interest groups on the planned route and the design of the bridge.

During the TV program, the commentator used the word "inferred" when he should have used the word "implied." I cringed. Stacey said from the kitchen, "Tell me I imagined that. Tell me I didn't hear that."

I don't understand how a respected local television commentator, purportedly a journalist, educated and experienced, could make such an egregious error. And the television program was not live; it could have been edited before being shown on the air. I suppose that I shouldn't be as sensitive as I am. The English language is ever-changing, evolving, so to speak ... although I know that God made only a limited number of words and it is blasphemous to claim that evolution plays some roll in this arena, also ... but invention of words is one thing and improper usage of words with a recognized meaning is another.

This is not an example of verbifying a noun or nounifying a verb, which, in most circumstances, I abhor because it is a result of laziness, not imagination, arising from a lackluster vocabulary or poor grasp of the English language.

English is fucked, I say.

Posted by Bill at July 4, 2006 11:57 PM