Up until now, I have been sitting back, attempting to ignore
something that really bothers me.
For years, I have been content to simply vent my frustrations by yelling
at the TV whenever I hear it, but no more.
I can’t take it any more. It is
time to speak up and be heard!
My plea to the News departments of the world is, “Please
stop the slaughtering of the English language on your daily Television News
programs.”
I do not consider myself to be a stuffy intellectual. Personally, I dreaded every, single, painful moment
that I spent studying grammar in high school but apparently the very people who sought out
a profession where they would be in the public eye (or is it "the public ear"? ), where a touch of class might
be important, chose to skip those classes entirely.
As a population we are ever so cautious about being “politically
correct” in every thing we say and write.
However, judging from what I hear during TV interviews with
accident/fire scene witnesses and the not-so-occasional public official, the
typical American couldn’t pick out the correct verb tense in a Police
lineup. But what troubles me the most
is that, sadly, some of those on the "professional" side of the microphone do not
do much better. Daily, I hear major
grammatical faux pas made by newsreaders that ring in my ears like a chunk of steel plate dropped
10 feet onto a concrete floor.
TV newscasters have, apparently, elected themselves “In Loco
Parentis”. Day after day they admonish
us to: “Wash our hands.” “Use
sun-screen in the sun.” “Dress in
layers in the cold.” “Don’t stand
under a tree in a lightning storm.” But they manage to forget that people who
cannot effectively communicate cannot begin to understand or operate today’s
complex world.
If TV news is really
trying to be “the parent” here, then they should be responsible parents
and attempt to use proper English in all of their news broadcasts. They claim to be “professional speakers,” so
they should prove it.
To demonstrate my position, here is a list of recent verbal
infractions perpetrated by anonymous TV newspersons in just the past few weeks.
The use of the word Busted”
To the best of my knowledge, the word “bust” used in any
other way than to describe the upper portion of the human anatomy as rendered
in marble, is considered slang. So, I
was quite disturbed to hear recently that a water main “was busted open”.
Ok, I will accept that “bust”, as used to describe the
capture of a felon, is now a generally excepted term. But let’s try to exhibit a little bit of class and use “burst”,
“ruptured” or even “broken” to describe water mains, and restrict the use of
“busted” for criminal arrests.
Headlines
Newspaper headlines have always been terse. It is part of their mystique. These catchy phrases grab people’s attention
and conserve print space, but television headlines are typically spoken and
need not be so choppy. They should stop
sounding like Tonto and try sounding a little more like Walter Cronkite (You
all remember him, don’t you?).
Verb tenses
When presenting a news story, is it too much at ask that
they try to get the verb tenses right or, at the very least, make them all agree. Recently, one of the on-the-scene field
reporters announced that a man was “thrown” (past tense) from his car and the
car “lands” (present tense) on top of him.
I’m sure that this is, in part, a throw back to the headline legacy
where newspapers tried to make the story seem more current than it was by using
the present tense to make it seem as if it were happening in right front of the
reader. But the point is that the
language doesn’t make sense. “OK”, you
say, “It was 6 AM, the reporter had been in the field all night and just made a
mistake.” I can understand that. The point is we really don’t need an
“absolutely, right-now” live report.
The report is only a minute or two long, so just do it over, with
grammar is corrected and then air the corrected report. They re-tape for other reasons; why not to
do it right.
“Countable” Nouns vs. “Non-countable” Nouns
This next one I can’t really blame on the news media, but
the news media could help correct the situation by using the expressions
correctly. The word “amount” should
only be used in situations where the items in question cannot be counted. If the items can be counted then a
word like “number” should be used instead.
It is the “amount of money” or “the number of people”. You wouldn’t say the “number of money”, so
why would you say “the amount of people”?
And don’t get me started on “less” vs. “fewer”.
...I'm feeling much better, now.
'Til Next time...Keep makin' Chips!
