A few weeks back, in a column titled ‘Inane Chatter’ I mentioned some of the truly dumb expressions or word use that the folks in the broadcast media drop on us, and many readers told me how much fun they had had with that. One very nice lady grabbed me in Kirk’s and actually repeated a number of the examples in the article, laughing uproariously at each one, telling them to me as if I’d never heard them before.
Of course part of the language mangling we encounter these days is simply evolution – new words coming in, some words going out of fashion, and changes in the meaning of a word. An example of the latter is the use of the word ‘quality’ which is a noun meaning ‘a standard or level’ but is now being used as an adjective – ‘he is a quality individual’; used like that the word ‘quality’ actually means ‘high quality’. You would think English is confusing enough as it is, without us adding to the melee, but, as the Trinis say, ‘Well, you know how it is padna.’
Another part of it is the impact of television where, because of time constraints, commentators are given to shortening phrases or giving you just the first letter in a phrase, such as ‘by the way’ becoming ‘BTW’ and ‘interception’ becomes ‘INT’.
This kind of general language mangling, or modifying, is all over the place, and many of us seem to have pet peeves in this area; readers have called in some, and here are a few:
At this point in time. My Jesuit English teacher in high school, Father Feeney, used to preach ‘use the fewest words possible’. Since ‘at this point in time’ actually means ‘now’, it’s obvious people aren’t paying much attention to Fr. Feeney. This particular expression actually comes from science, where it is used to differentiate between ‘a point in time’ and ‘a point in space’, but people clearly are captivated by the sound of it now, or at this point in time.
Deteriate. First off, there is no such word as ‘deteriate’ – what they mean is ‘deteriorate’ – but it’s interesting that it’s usually written correctly but mangled when spoken; maybe it’s the Western inability to pronounce properly. Politicians, for some reason, seem especially prone to this mistake, particularly ones in opposition who are always primed to jump on examples of deterioration – excuse me, ‘deteriation’.
Nucelar. For some reason, this distortion of the word ‘nuclear’ seems to be prevalent far more with North American speakers. Even US President George Bush, in his most pontifical moments, will tell you of a ‘nucelar threat’. Mind you, Bush seems to be instinctively aware that there is a problem, because he often hesitates before saying ‘nucelar’ and sometimes seems to be trying to shake the ‘e’ back into its proper place before the ‘l’, but he always loses the battle.
Consensus of opinion. The word ‘consensus’ already means a majority opinion, so to say ‘consensus of opinion’ is to say ‘majority opinion of opinion’. The excess has been pointed out before, but the phrase remains, so it would seem ‘consensus of opinion’ is not going to disappear – that’s the consensus.
Criteria: While it may sound like a singular form, criteria is plural; ciriterion is the singular. When, by comparison, someone says, ‘The buildings is…’ it sounds wrong, and it is wrong. When someone says, ‘the criteria is…’ while it may not sound wrong, it is wrong.
Some of the manglings are undoubtedly going to end up as part of Standard English one day, but some of them make you cringe. I’ve mentioned elsewhere the North American tendency to insert the word ‘of’ in sentences where it’s not needed – ‘it’s too good of a day to stay home’ – but that one really grates on me, thanks to Father Feeney. Even the famous Wolf Blitzer lays that one on us.
In the Caribbean a number of these things have migrated from our dialect into Standard English, so that in the middle of an erudite presentation, you will hear someone say he is going to ‘refer back’, and a Bajan, guiding his wife out of the garage, will instruct her to ‘reverse back’.
There is also the confusion between ‘prescribe’ and ‘proscribe’, two words which have exactly opposite meanings, and the frequent mistake of using ‘principal’ instead of ‘principle’.
Some of this stuff is just plain funny. Recently, for example, the Compass newspaper reported on a court case where two witnesses, with contradictory testimony, were said to have ‘purged’ themselves…with castor oil or cascara perhaps? Obviously the word they wanted was ‘perjured’. And Mike Haysman, the garrulous colour man on 20/20 cricket recently told us that ‘batting and bowling is important, but what is also crucial is the mental frame of mind.’ He said it twice: ‘mental frame of mind’. As opposed what Mike? ‘physical frame of mind’?
In the end, we may feel better grumbling about it, but the trend will probably continue. To sum things up: I understand the ‘principal’ involved, but ‘at this point in time’, the ‘general consensus of opinion’ is that this is too good ‘of’ a day to get upset over the ‘deteriation’ in this ‘criteria’; it’s not like a ‘nucelar’ threat or anything.
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