More Banned Words and Other Verbage Atrocities

This Labor Day Weekend is crammed with sports.  That’s just fine for folks like me.  Then, I start listening to the announcers and the “color” guys.  “Wow, you should see [fill in the name of the running back here] when he gets in space." Holy Smoke! Do they have football in “space”?  Maybe that Oregon running back who punched the Boise State linebacker in the jaw is from outer space?    

Another hackneyed phrase that keeps cropping up again and again: “We have reporters [firefighters, troops] on the ground.”  Holy Cow!  Where else would they be—in space with the running back?

One of my old tirades while in day-to-day news was the usage of “whether or not.”  What’s wrong with “whether or not?"  It is redundant.  All you need to say is “whether,” as in “I don’t know whether I’m using the English language well.”  As in all good writing, economy of words is the goal, unless you happen to be writing legislation. 

Another constantly-used redundancy? “ATM machine.” 

I've long said that journalists should not write the way people talk. An example is the constantly used question, “Where’s it at?”  My mother was an elementary school teacher.  This is one of the first things she pounded into my preschool brain.  If I were to say, “Where’s it at?” my mom would answer, “Between the A and the T!”  I came to hate dangled prepositions.  All was well in our household if I were to ask simply, “Where is it?”

All these should be added to the newsroom white board as banned words and phrases.  Want some more?

Ø  “Fewer vs. Less.”  Fewer people use this adjective properly nowadays; it is becoming less and less prevalent.  These words are not interchangeable.  Generally, use “less” with mass nouns and “fewer” with plural count nouns.  For example, “less employment, fewer jobs.”  (The Columbia Guide to Standard American English) 

Ø  “Farther” vs. “Further.”  Again, these are not interchangeable.  “Farther” pertains to distance (A play-by-play guy this weekend said the running back could have gone further down the field.”  No, he couldn’t.  He was tackled. Anyway, “further” has to do with depth of understanding or additional information.)

Ø   “It’s” vs “Its.”  "It’s" is a contraction for “It is” while “Its” is a possessive pronoun.  Most people know this.  It’s a typo more often than not.

Ø  And finally, “Lie” vs “Lay.”  Basically, living beings lie and inanimate objects lay.  After that, one gets into verb tenses, and we do not want to go there.

Now that I have vented again about use of our language, I may get back to local journalism next time.

© Jim McNabb, 2009