Talking Heads Abuse English Language

Grant W. Bingeman

Plano, Texas

29 November 2007

I would like to know who writes the teleprompter text that the television news announcers read out loud for the cameras.

These writers are clearly not educated, or their target viewing audience has at best a third-grade education. Perhaps these

writers get points for inventing ugly new meanings, such as impacted misconstrued as a verb. Why on Earth would a writer

want to flaunt his ignorance in such a public venue? And why would an announcer tolerate such bad writing? Writers and

announcers have an obligation to conduct their business in a professional manner, to uphold a good standard of English usage.

I decided to put together a short list of egregious, but common abuses of the English language that are broadcast every

hour of every day. I do this as a service to the broadcast industry, having been a part of it since 1963. Remember that you

are judged by how well you write and speak.

1) use the words affect or influence in preference to impact.

2) avoid busted; try revealed or exposed.

3) healthy refers to living things; healthful refers to other things, such as exercise.

4) perverse means stubborn; it does not mean perverted.

5) do not say “different than,” it is better to say “differs from.”

6) whoever made up the term gifted should have their psychology degree revoked.

7) whomever and whom should be stricken from the dictionary (just a suggestion).

8) understand the differences between datum, datae and data.

9) speed is the rate of change of position with respect to time; velocity is speed in a certain direction.

rate of speed is not the same as speed; it implies the magnitude of acceleration.

10) in the same vein, current flow is redundant; simply use the word current.

11) irregardless used in place of regardless (particularly ugly).

12) revert back is redundant; simply use revert.

13) understand the difference between medium and media.

14) never mispronounce athlete as “ath-a-lete.”

15) do not pronounce the “h” in forehead or herbicide.

16) please pronounce iodine as in chlorine and bromine; “een.”

17) nuclear: try “new-clee-are;” eschew “new-kew-lar.” Same for nucleus.

18) dissect: pronounced “diss-sect.” does not mean cut in two! Use bisect.

19) centrifugal force exists only in rotating reference frames.

20) cannot is not spelled as two words.

21) avoid enthused, a bastard form of enthusiastic.

22) there is a big difference between well and good.

23) know when to use bad and badly, poor and poorly, etc.

25) who said it was okay to drop the “r” from wriggle?

26) phenomenon is singular; phenomena is plural

27) alumnus, alumna, alumnae; never alum.

28) curriculum, curriculae, curricula (some of the most inconsistently used words ever).

29) one does not “graduate” high school; rather, one graduates from school.

30) learn to spell separate, for God’s sake!

31) lay, lie and laid; few know how to use these words correctly.

32) less versus fewer.

33) redundant or worse: “exact same,” “most perfect,” “most unique.”

34) This month’s Pretentious Word Award goes to fungibles.

35) Please avoid problematic; nobody knows what it means.

Last updated 12-20-2007