Main Street News

Say Whut?
Let’s get this out of the way before anyone gets the misguided idea this is some sort of scholarly piece: I am most decidedly not a grammarian, or much of any other kind of marian. If anything, I’m a whatinhellisgoingonherearian who may possess at least a passing familiarity with this readin’ ‘n’ writin’ thing, and as such am seemingly aware of when something sounds awkward, ill-conceived, or maybe even downright stupid in the march toward the utter desecration of the English language, which has become a growth industry.
The examples to follow have been culled from newspaper stories, magazines, blah-blah-blah, in other words not from truly low-hanging fruit, such as some self-appointed “influencer” type who can’t find their way to the, uh, whatever. This old-timer is here to kvetch over the carelessness, sloppiness, and disregard that has descended upon the deployment of the English language these days. One of the magnificent things about said language is its status as a living language. For clarity’s sake, that’s not what’s under discussion here. At the risk of sounding like Captain Pedantic, as Kasper Gutman said to Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon,” “Here’s to plain speaking and clear understanding.”
It’s like déjà vu in the a.m. with a side of Splüütfregasnop
Kicking this off with an easy one, that of the never-ending ubiquitous duplication of a.m. in the morning. Glad to know it’s not 7 a.m. in the evening, or whatever, seeing as how life is confusing enough as is. It’d be hard to swing a dead cat and not have it smack into someone somewhere – news readers, podcasters, whomever – unloading this one.
Notice it’s almost always the “a.m. in the morning” thing, and rarely “p.m. in the afternoon/evening.” It doesn’t sound right. “Johnny, your bedtime is 8 p.m. this evening.” It doesn’t work nearly as well. In a way it reminds me of the “déjà vu all over again” deal (ever hear anyone say, simply, déjà vu?), although even if the phrase did not originate with Yogi Berra, which it likely did not since he didn’t say 90 percent of half the things he said, it’s an evergreen that remains vaguely humorous.
Tough to find a good explanation for this one: On so many levels. “That running play to the right side was a good play call on so many levels.” Never seems to matter whether the play went for 43 yards or negative two, it was … you get the idea. It’s painful to think about. This is one of those buzzwords or phrases that, at first blush, sound as though the speaker or writer is playing four-dimensional chess, when in truth they’ve accomplished sounding Hawkingesque without actually saying a single meaningful thing. There doesn’t seem to be a good word for it. How about we invent one? Splüütfregasnop. How’s that?
Perhaps what we should do with on so many levels is unpack it. Wildly overused, albeit something that was clever once, maybe even twice, but when it became the go-to for every last talking head on the boob tube and any other garden variety jamoke that picks up on it, it’s enough to make a train take a dirt road, as the man once said. “Let’s unpack this.” Let’s not and say we did, if we don’t mind. Fully cognizant that those talking heads and whomever else have hours and hours and hours of time to fill, said situation nonetheless does not grant them the right to pummel viewers with ear gibberish.
Is vs. are
This was going to pop up a couple examples later in this elegant work of art, but when the all-knowing, all-seeing program used to concoct this document got all huffy urging me to change is to are in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph, I nearly fell out of my chair. You’d think I’d be accustomed to this by now. In the event we’ve all been too busy fretting over the next goofy thing from The Royal Family, the word are has been expeditiously removed from the English language and replaced by is. When rules of grammar functioned: Jesse is driving the golf cart. Come 2024: Jesse are driving the golf cart. No, Jesse aren’t, aren’t he?
Similarly, I’m afraid all is lost in the its vs. it’s war. Kaput. Forget it.
Should of thought of that. I should of, should I of? In the blink of an eye, we went from the grammatically correct “should have” to “should of,” which, okay, I get that they sound identical, but if that were the rule, how do we deal with “I ate eight of those eclairs?”
Is it humorous to anyone else that AI is learning how to do its thing from us?
Really falling off a limb with this one. Just. “Just” wears two faces, from, as my dad was fond of saying, the sublime to the ridiculous. The sublime? The restaurant is just over the hill. The ridiculous? If you’d just stop buying a Maraschino Cherry Strawberry Kiwi Mocha Meringue-flavored drink every morning, you’d have enough simoleons saved up for a house in no time. Uh-huh, and if you had been born into the Rockefeller family you could afford two Maraschino Cherry Strawberry Kiwi Mocha Meringue-flavored drinks every morning and still spend winters on the French Riviera and buy a house.
Hammer and tongue. Someone is going to get hurt here, you can see it coming. A hammer and a tongue have zero business being in that close proximity to one another. If you feel it necessary to go after something hammer and tongue, please wear your life jacket, and perhaps a protective guard for your tongue. There’s a good chance a surgeon or an orthodontist or an orthopedic surgeon will be involved by the end of the day.
One-offs
These I’d describe more as one-offs, although once something has appeared on the horizon, you never can tell when it might take on a life of its own.
• That skitterish feeling.
• On tender hooks. How tender, exactly? Will they hold my weight?
• Very instantaneous. Would that be pre-this-very-second? Should one “pre-plan” for the very instantaneous event about to occur?
• A fire under my belly. Uh, where?
• I’ll be fitting the bill for her purchases. I most certainly will not. She has her own money.
• Original founders. Unlike those who founded it before it was founded. By the founders.
• Pushed to the brinks. You might think one brink at a time would be plenty for anyone, but apparently not everyone, it seems.
• All of the sudden. The sudden … what?
• The telephone line is covered 24 to 7. That certainly limits things – no wonder I can’t reach customer service. To give us all a fighting chance, is that 24 to 7 in the morning or evening? Oh, right, we live in a digital world. That’s 6:36.
Incorrectly Placed Apostrophe Syndrome
Alright, alright, enough of that. How about we wander into the world of screwy language usage and other random bees that have worked their way under my bonnet?
Operating under the assumption/hope that all is not completely lost, seems to me we should be able to fix the Incorrectly Placed Apostrophe Syndrome in relatively short order. The rules, unlike many of those governing the English language, are immutable. Some recent doozies that popped up on the near horizon: Was’nt. Learn’ers permit. Having come to grips as best possible with the notion that the world can no longer deal with the its-it’s question, in particular since every dumbphone on the planet can’t figure it out, one might think that something like wasn’t wouldn’t present such a puzzler.
The Internet was going to make us all smarter, yes?
I’m not sure if AI is behind this one or headline writers have simply grown indifferent. It’s always heartwarming to see that ultra-famous movie star Petunia Petal Pusher spent her weekend sunning on some tropical island with her longtime beau, Rock Rockhead. But it can’t be that simple. Not these days. Nine out of ten times, the 2024 headline will state, “Revealed: PPP, Rock Sunbathe.” Or, “Revealed: Petunia and Rock Dine Out.” Other times, it is “revealed” that Rock’s 99-year-old mother, the famous painter, Rebekka Rockhead, is up in years. Regardless of who or what is behind it, the premise behind something being revealed every time it flinches cheapens the language.
Still on the headline kick, here’s a recent doozy: New York State Offers Free Admission Today. To everything? This is a tricky one. It’s not inconceivable that what we have here is an effort by state leadership to try a gimmick or two, given the notion that the entire population of the state has, according to all the flashing red, 72-point headlines, thrown up its hands and moved somewhere that has better tornadoes and flooding and extended power outages and oppressive heat.
Quick question. If I could still run with any degree of efficiency, I would run in the opposite direction as soon as this one pops up. Contrary to speeding things up, these two words are frequently followed by some of the most prodigious stemwinders you’ll hear. Not bad writing, not even bad speaking, exactly, but … why? I have an idea. Try asking the question without the preparation. I’ll bet most of us can handle it.
How does this all end? At the risk of going full-scale Cassandra, one of my (many) theories is that it won’t be too much longer before we find ourselves back in the days when symbols and drawings guide our written ability to communicate. Eh, perhaps a do-over couldn’t hurt.