Mr. Grumpy Grammar

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By Don Varyu

Oct 2022

 
 

n the very first issue of the Cascade Review I went on a rant about an aspect of language that absolutely rankles me—the verb confusion over the word “none.” It’s epidemic. For example, no one would say, “one of those people are stupid.” But flip that context to the negative and almost everyone makes the mistake--“none of those people are stupid.” In both cases, we’re establishing a single subject--“one” or “not one”--so the verb should be equally singular: “is.” Every time I hear this, it clanks off my ear.

OK, whatever, right? Granted, I’ve never been a grammarian, or even a good copy editor, but there are other language mishaps that peeve me, so here goes. The following examples deal mainly with the spoken word rather than the written. And to accurately reflect the level of my peevishness, I’ll add a 1-to-5 “grump-o-meter” (GOM) for each example, 5 being the grumpiest.

  • “Amazing, bizarre, tragic.” In the realm of broadcast news, this is the holy trinity of hack terms which have been bludgeoned to a bloody death. They’re so overused they no longer carry any meaning. Take these three out of their vocabularies, and TV news people would be left dumbfounded. No coherent thought could emerge. G-O-M: 4 (By the way, “stunning” and “shocking” are about to join this list.)

  • “Excited.” This is the equally lame counterpart in the corporate world. If you run a business and anyone hands you the draft of a news release, a speech, or a list of speaking points, and it declares how “excited” you are—fire that person on the spot. This is intellectual surrender, a sign of incurable torpor. But of course, you don’t have to be mean about it. Just hand the draft back and explain how “excited” you are their new job search. G-O-M: 4.

  • “So…” The next time a news reporter in the field…or a garden variety pundit inside the studio…is asked a question, notice how often the very first word uttered is, “so…”. It’s become a mandatory verbal windup, like swinging a bowling ball backwards before rolling it down the alley. (Gen Z’ers: feel free to Google “bowling”.) G-O-M: 2

  • “Impornant.” I misspelled that on purpose because that’s the way so many people now say it. The word “important”, with two “t’s”, has now been stripped of its first one, replaced with an added “n”. It’s just annoying more than anything else, but on a foundational level it makes me wonder if people who make this mistake just haven’t done enough reading. How can you see “important” on a screen or page and not know how to say it properly? G-O-M: 3.

  • “Excerpt.” This is not the same word as “exert.” You can not “exert” a phrase from a paragraph. Really…look it up. G-O-M: 2.

  • “Tour.” This one really doesn’t annoy as much as baffle me. Somehow, somewhere, the pronunciation of the word “tour” has gone from “tur” to “tore.” I don’t know why. G-O-M: 0.

  • The maddening present tense. This has become the reigning pretension of lazy historians and journalists everywhere. Is it not clear to them that historical events occurred in the past--and thus should be related in the past tense!? But no. Narratives are moved from the proper past tense to a faux current one, just for the sake of artificial drama. For example, “Lincoln walked into his box at the Ford Theatre becomes, “Lincoln walks into his box…” My goodness, can’t you just smell the gunpowder? So thrilling! Isn’t this great stuff? No, it’s trite, it’s stale, and it’s time to let the past exist in the time frame where it belongs. Historians: tell stories—don’t cover them with cheap glitter. G-O-M: 5.

  • “Democrat”. For me, this one breaks the meter. Several years ago, some GOP strategist decided that labeling the rival party “democratic” might be underscoring the difference between a party that actually believes in democracy…and the one which scorns it. So, they insisted that from that day forward there would be no mention of the “democratic” party, only a “democrat” party. Of course, this makes no sense grammatically. “Democratic” and “Republican” are adjectives; “democrat” and “republic” are nouns. So, language dictates that they be used correctly. Otherwise, it would be like saying, “that actor has flow hair” rather than “flowing” hair. But these days, almost all media have bought in. G-O-M: 11.

  • “Cliché.” Same idea, lesser import. Something can not be “cliché”—it’s a cliché. When you walk down the street, you can say “that’s a dog”, but not, “that’s dog.” G-O-M: 3.

Well, that leaves me with just one more gripe. And I’ve saved the worst for last: the serial insertion of the word “like” into almost everything uttered by almost every person under a certain age (an age considerably younger than me.) And in doing this, I have to admit that in my day many people used the phrase “ya’ know” exactly the same way.

In any case, I know one young person who is extremely smart, extremely sweet and highly regarded and well compensated in her field. But she is a lethal sprayer of the “likes”, firing at will with her linguistic shotgun. There was a time I might have kindly warned her that this affliction could prevent her from landing a good job, since those doing the hiring could underestimate her intelligence. But I’m forced to concede that now most of the people doing the hiring use “likes” as freely as the candidates. So, I guess I’m wrong. 

But I don’t have to “like” it.

 
 

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