Comments Posted By David Bligh
Displaying 1 To 1 Of 1 Comments
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (AND OTHER IDIOCIES)
While I appreciate the necessity of the limited scope of each blog installment, I initially hoped for reference in your blog to the hatchet jobs performed on the English language in practically all reporting avenues. It is a sad commentary on the state of our national dialogue that for example (1) subject and predicate too often disagree, (2) the gerund is never, as it should be, modified by the adjective form of the possessive pronoun, and (3) topics of national and international importance are regularly mispronounced--consider the President of the United States’ pronouncing "nuclear" as if it were spelled "nuculer." These three examples may be dismissed as insignificant by some, especially those who make a living from their butchery of the greatest language on Earth. But, the point is that these examples describe the symptoms of the disease. The illness is the lazy mind. In the rush to inject my idea into the marketplace, I could simply dismiss the rules of grammar. After all, isn’t it more important to beat the next person to the punch with a poorly articulated idea than to apply a disciplined mind to the idea before it is subjected to the harsh light of public scrutiny? At another time (e.g. 1776) in our nation’s development, public scrutiny would be expected and serve as a deterrent to sloppy composition. Unfortunately, there are few in our country today with the ability to recognize or the courage to state that “the king is wearing no clothes.â€
Comment Posted By David Bligh On 25.02.2006 @ 21:01
