I'm not sure what happened that pushed me over the edge, but I have recently assumed the role of official language curmudgeon. I've always liked reading, writing and playing with words. And while I'm very attuned to usage and proper grammar, I'm not one of those annoying people who corrects someone while they're talking. In the privacy of my head however, I circle their mistakes in red just like the nuns did on my high school essays.
Take the word "amazing" for example. Webster defines it as "filled with great surprise or sudden wonder; astonishing".
It's an uber descriptive, powerful adjective that works particularly well with life's memorable moments -- like childbirth, winning the lottery, viewing the Grand Canyon, hearing a prodigy play Chopin and other events of similar magnitude.
Yet, a guest on the Today Show was telling Matt Lauer about an amazing olive tapenade, an amazing garlic mayonnaise and -- yes --- an amazing spicy guacamole. In that brief 4 minutes of fame segment, he used the word "amazing" 9 times. And just to further irritate me, he repeatedly drew out the second syllable so my ear spelled it "amaaaazing".
Give the man a thesaurus! Food is delicious, scrumptious, delectable, yummy, heavenly....and so on. But unless you're dining with the Dali Lama at the top of the Eiffel Tower it's rarely amazing.
Like I want to literally jump off the Golden Gate Bridge when I hear language misused. Wouldn't that be amazing?
2 comments:
Would you care to weigh in on what appears to be another rampant grammatical glitch?
Hillary Clinton is being spoken of as possibly our first "woman president". Versus all the previous "man" presidents? Is there a problem with the adjective "female" that I'm not PC enough to be aware of?
- Greg Costopoulos
Ah Heggie !
You must have a hard time with a French Friend who makes many mistakes...
I can attest you like to play with words !! and sometimes my dictionaries can't find the words.. but I do love reading your blog !
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