Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/111814
OPINION Things I Am Tired of Hearing by DAVE WILSON Everyday conversation whether delivered by highly paid news anchors, sports commentators, politicians or just folks speaking to each other has degenerated into inarticulate habits or simply bad grammar. Let���s begin with the most common, the omnipresent ���you know.��� Or is it ���You know?��� No, I don���t. Otherwise, I would not be listening to your conversation. Yet it is seemingly inserted at every pause for a breath. Then there is the emphasis word ���actually.��� Answers to the most innocuous questions are prefaced with ���actually;��� as in ���How was your day?��� The response so often is ���Well, actually, it was fine.��� This is to assure the questioner that the responder is not lying, I suppose. ���Actually��� has become yesterday���s ���basically���, a most popular beginning to any question for reasons that elude me. Errors in grammar are so common today that they go unnoticed. The most prevalent is the double subject, which has infected everyone���s speech. An example is ���President Obama, he��� or ���the Democrats, they.��� The pronoun tossed in after the subject serves no purpose. If one says ���President Obama��� the subject of the sentence has been precisely established. Misuse of pronouns has become so widespread that correct usage is often confused as misuse. Recently the President was speaking to a group in Asheville, N.C., and he was making a comparison and said ���than them.��� Had he added the verb the sentence would have been completed as ���than them are.��� Oops. Using the subjective case in the sentence predicate is popular among sportscasters. You hear quite often a comment such as this, ���He took he and I to dinner after the game.��� Ouch. Have you ever wondered how television reporters on the scene of an important news event always question a witness with no concept of the word ���saw��� other than as a tool to cut wood? It is always when interviewed, ���I seen the train coming and������ Also, why when describing an activity involving more than the speaker must the subjective case of the personal pronoun ���I��� change to the objective ���me?��� As in ���I went to the movies��� becomes ���Me and Bill went to the movies?��� And when your telephone (this applies to landlines) rings and the caller asks to speak to you by name do not say this is him or her. You say this is he or she. Try reversing the sentence organization and say ���Him is this.��� Not so good. Now to hackneyed phrases, some of which I have touched on in the past. Why must every list be a ���laundry list���, every test be a ���litmus test���, every change be a ���sea change��� or everything that has happened or is happening be ���amazing?��� Entertainers slide ���amazing��� into every other sentence when describing the most ordinary people or events. She sang a song. ���Wow that was amazing!��� No it was not. She just sang a song. Find some other word before everything and anything becomes ���amazing.��� Amazing should describe an event, object or individual that is so extraordinary, so astonishing, so awe inspiring that the viewer or listener cannot relate it to the ordinary or routine. Then there is the ubiquitous ���like.��� Too often modern conversation may begin with ���Well, like actually.��� The speaker is fumbling for something to say and begins with absolutely nothing. Describing the demise of a friend found dead, one might often hear today ���He was like, you know, dead.��� Most people understand the definition of the word dead so the interrogative ���you know?��� is superfluous. But ���like��� as in this situation suggests that the departed is possibly feigning death and not really so. He is like dead? Death is digital. One is or is not so. Sickness is analog. One may be ���like��� sick as in I can���t go to school today in which case the unenthusiastic scholar may reasonably assert that he is ���like��� sick. So you see the difference. The word like can mean an appreciation or affection for someone or something or it can mean a similarity. But those are the definitions and ���like��� should not be a substitute for ���I just am terribly inarticulate and therefore I must say ���like��� at any and DAVE WILSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@ all breaks in my conversation.��� upandcomingweekly.com. ;\YU [V V\Y JHSLUKHY L]LY` >LKULZKH` HUK ZLL ^OH[��Z OHWWLUPUN 484-6200 www.upandcomingweekly.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM FEB. 27 - MARCH 5, 2013 UCW 5