Language Habits V (A series of occasional rants)

 Occasional readers, here is the first rant of 2024, taking aim at the mistakes, massacres, and misuses of the American tongue.  Please do not take offense if you find entries below that befoul your own speech.  It is not your fault, up to this point in time.  After you read this post, though, any such repeated use of any of these annoying constructions will be scored against you.

So read at your own risk.

Asterick:  What the devil is this?  A desperate attempt to rhyme “limerick”?  A tick that feeds in your aster?  Listen.  If this is your uninformed attempt to say “asterisk”–that beloved symbol of omitted matter or special notice–just STOP IT!  This failed attempt at sophisticated (or at least technical) language just marks the speaker as a fumbling poser.

Play a factor:  Generally used in commonly stunted sports talk, this smashup should stop being a factor.  Who in ‘ell started this?  How about “IS a factor” or “PLAYS a role”?  This garbled version belongs only in the dustbin of the locker room.

Woke:  Well, this can go either way now, because recently the term has been hijacked by the right to criticize progressives’ concerns with racial justice and sexual and gender rights.  Originally a term meant to indicate awareness of the need to protect justice and rights for minority groups in society, the (wrong) right has reversed it to mock seekers of justice and fairness as some namby-pamby effete liberals.  Those who buy into this perverse meaning certainly are not awake to basic democratic values.  Sometimes they even sleep through their criminal trials.

Comprised of:  I’ve heard even over-educated Ivy leaguers blow this one.  In fact, most people butcher this phrase.  In the effort to use a 25-cent word, they’ll say something like, “The program was comprised of lectures, musical performances, and some improvisational acting.”  NO, THE PROGRAM WASN’T!  The correct usage is, “The program comprised lectures, musical performances, and some improvisational acting.”  I know, I know.  But do check it out.  Misusing a 25-cent word is like painting the backside of a Bentley on your garage door.  It’s just tacky.

Doing damage:  Here’s another piece of slop from the Handbook of Jock-Talk.  As athletes develop from children to professional athletes, we progress from the mercy rule to stop lopsided children’s scores and handshake lines–to language that degrades the goal of competition from the high Greek ideal of sport as the development of excellence and human flourishing through competition to the rather lesser aim of doing harm to the opponent.  This crummy creature of alienated alliteration probably slithered out of our current culture of foe-finding, especially with our fascination with military might.

Break it down.  Another new staple of broadcast journalism, this seems another angry term.  It indicates destruction, broken things.  And it has replaced a simpler, more accurate single word:  EXPLAIN!  So what the etymology!?!  This one spread quickly across America’s news outlets, and its provenance remains a mystery.  But if I ever find the person who first used this term in a newscast, I am going to do some damage.

Sort of, like, right?  How is it that in this era of righteousness, wrongheaded certainty, and angry indignation we hear all of this mealy-mouthed qualification or permission seeking?  And why does it seem to be housed more on the liberal side of the political spectrum?   (MSNBC hosts, and one in particular who shall go unnamed, seem particularly fond of treading oh so lightly on others’ sensibilities with their “assertions.”)  Like, why don’t you own what you are saying!?!  Just assert the thing, or say straight out that (a) you think something but are open to challenge, or (b) confess that you just had a thought and don’t really know what you think about it.  And notice that these qualifiers are logically ordered as printed above.  “Sort of” is more like something than is “like” (the former being at least a member of a sort!), and “right?” is outright seeking affirmation from your listeners before you dare to claim even “like.”  Right?

Incidents/incidences:  Another one that even the too-proud Ivy Leaguers commonly muff.  They use the latter when they mean the former.  Incidents are things you can count, like the number of robberies in town last month.  Incidence refers to the rate at which things occur.  Don’t tell me that the incidence of kidnappings increased to 15 in January!  It’s already cold in Massachusetts then, and I don’t want to be further frosted by your scrambled terms.  Tell me the incidence of kidnapping increased in January.  It’ll warm my heart.