Holding back the tide
Posted January 23rd, 2012 by debritz
This post is brought to you by the television networks who insist on calling repeats "encores".
An encore is a short repeated item or an additional item at the end of a performance. When you just screen something again, it's a repeat.
Oh, and while we're at it:
1) There are no degrees of uniqueness, the word "unique" is unique. Something that is "almost unique" is rare or unusual. If it's unique it's one of a kind. It cannot be "very unique".
2) "Refute" is not a synonym for "deny". If you refute a claim, you prove it to be untrue, you don't just contradict it.
3) If somebody has drowned or has been electrocuted, they are dead. There are no exceptions to this rule.
4) Alternative and alternate don't mean the same thing.
Why are these things important? Because it dilutes our language if we misuse words with specific meanings, and our ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with each other suffers in the process.
We all slip up occasionally but when it comes to the examples above, too many people in the media are repeat offenders. Or, in their language, they like to provide encores of their ignorance.
I hate it when people refer to a "safe haven".
Havens are a place of safety. End of story, morning glory !
"I guess I like flawed people the best." -
Steve takes the long way back by: Des Houghton From: The Courier-Mail January 28, 2012
Technically, drowning is asphyxiation due to blockage of the trachea, usually cased by water, which stops breathing. Thus it is most certainly possible to drown and not die.
I only point this out because if you're going to be a pedantic little word snob, you may want to (at least) be correct.
drown/droun/
Verb:
Die through submersion in and inhalation of water.
Deliberately kill (a person or animal) in this way.
Can you be a pedantic anything or would you just be a pedant?
Brett, can you please forward your remarks to every newspaper on Earth? (A bit of a task, I know - and the problem is the bastards wouldn't listen anyway).
I've lost count of how many times "refute" has been used when "reject" is what is meant.
Or how many people who have been electrocuted are now "recovering in hospital".
Or how "suicide" gets changed into a verb ("The man suicided by jumping off his balcony") - then you read in the last paragraph: "The victim is recovering in St Louis Hospital". Yeah? Back from the dead?
Or how "the man was drowned at Koh Samui". If he WAS drowned, it wasn't an accident...
Ah, but perhaps many readers might see my heralding of these examples as the rantings of a pedant (well, yes, perhaps by those who have suffered so much repeated exposure to these nonsenses that they have been desensitised). I didn't really need to use the word "that" in that last sentence. "That" - another word that is probably one of the most misused in the media...
But, as it has been sarcastically said many times since the demolition of the subediting craft: "Who needs subs?"
Cheers
Ted
You have pointed out ways that our language has been "partially destroyed" lol.
Either it is destroyed or it is not. This one really annoys me.
In a few months we will hear about the use of the Verb "medal" as in, I am happy I was able to medal in that race.
From the Geelong Advertiser:
It's stationery!
I know it drives me crazy and very frustrating to boot!