I'm a Word Dick:

I don't know why. I mean, I grew up in Mississippi of all places but I have a rather large vocabulary and I'll spend a 50 cent word here and there. I find less people who actually understand 50 cent words anymore. Why bother with a complicated word that encapsulates four or five of the things you are trying to say when you can waste time describing those four or five things individually, at the same time, not even have the words to describe those four or five things.

VOCABULARIES have shrunken in the past 11 years. Why? I blame the schools, parents and the smart phone. I know, I'm a prude. I insist on typing every letter, every punctuation mark, anything to make my message CLEAR. Do you have any idea how many people completely misunderstand or misinterpret your text messages? I can type out a plain text using the correct punctuation and people still don't understand. Don't even get me started on the importance of diacriticle marks!

I read through news feeds and I'll click on a article with a bold headline. After about 3 paragraphs I give up because the author doesn't get to the bold headline as promised! Remember, when telling a story it's, Who, What, When Where and Why. Stop wasting your reader or listener's time with a bunch of extraneous wordage. Which now, after 3 paragraphs, I'll get to my BOLD headline, "See, What Had Happened Was..."

I have this friend. He recently decided he didn't need to take his anti-mood elevators. His resultant behaviour drove his entire family, friends and support groups away. He started using erratic speech. What I call, "Cliché, Catch-Phrases and Onomatopoeia." He'll start sentences with, "See what had happened was..." It makes me bristle. After 1 or 30 times later I finally asked him if he was aware of this speech pattern? He wasn't. I also offer the worst offender, "See...What You Don't Understand is..." That one I actually can't abide as a listener. What I don't understand is your lack of understanding of the English language. It's as if I were trying to communicate with an African village that speaks with pops and clicks. His usual sentence begins with, "See...what had happened was..." and progresses with, "this thing, came-out-a-no-where and smacked-me-into-next-Tuesday like, Wham!-Bam!-Pow! Do you know what I mean?" No, not really. Could you maybe toss a noun or a verb in that string of nonsense?

The biggest annoyance about this gibble-gabble speak is how unnecessary it is. Get to your point. When I hear, "Can I Ask You a Question?" I want to scream, "You just did!" If you are afraid of asking someone a personal question then say so. Ask away, or say, "I'd like to ask you a personal question."

Don't say, "Can I ask you a question?", if you are just asking a mundane question. It's creepy and dramatic!

That's all.

Today:

I tend to be a wordsmith. That being the times when I actually tend to work with words. Lately, I haven’t felt the inspiration to write or as Mr. Brian O’Bannion would put it, “court the muse.”

My parent’s are wordsmiths and I still have a handy little book that my father gave me while in the third grade entitled, 30,000 Words. No definitions. Just 30,000 Words and the syllabication or pronunciations. It was in this book that I learned the word impetuous.

One day on the way home from school my mother put the back window down on the Vista Cruiser station wagon and asked me to climb out and grab the mail from the box. I had only reached into the mailbox when she suddenly lurched forward causing me to lose my balance. I yelled out, “Stop the car, you impetuous thing!” She found it amusing while I was furious. I wanted to know why she was laughing at what was to me a very dangerous situation. It turned out that what she found amusing was the fact that I had almost used the word impetuous correctly.

This brings me to today. I hate it when obviously knowing people use words incorrectly. I have a few pet peeves, pacifically when they mean specifically or satistic when they mean statistic, etc. I assume they are unable to pronounce the mouthful of letters correctly in a short time. A common mistake but used incorrectly over a period of time I assume they just don’t know the difference. Maybe their parents used the words incorrectly and it has just been stuck as the default.

Sometimes, I find the misuse to be a colloquial thing. One person will say it and then the person they were talking to will say it and so on and so on. Supposably that is what’s happening. Which brings me to todays odd pronunciation, supposably. Someone I work with always says supposably. I wince and carry on. Then the other day I ran into another person who used the word supposably. Not once but numerous times within a short conversation. I winced and carried on.

I assumed it was just one of those things where the spoken word morphs into the actual word and before you know it that word becomes the official definition in the dictionary. I counted on the autocorrect function of my word processor to find the mistake. To my surprise, Supposedly and Supposably were both real words. WHAT? I reached for the little 30,000 Words book and found it to be true. How can this be? I thought it was some local verbal virus working its way through the population. I googled the words with the dubious suspicion that you get when looking up something on Wikipedia and found that supposably means, “it is possible to suppose.” Whereas supposedly means, “according to what is generally assumed or believed.

In almost every case the person using the word supposably would have meant to use the word supposedly if they only knew the difference. I wince and carry on then sometimes laugh because they almost got it right.

What’s Bothering Me Now:

The suffix ese.

Why are some things an ese?

While others are not.

You got yer, Angolese, Archdiocese, Balinese, Bhutanese, Burmese, Cantonese, Ceylonese, Chinese, Congolese, Gabonese, Genoese, Ghanese, Japanese, Javanese, Lebanese, Maltese, Milanese, Manganese, Nepalese, Nipponese, Obese, Pekinese, Portuguese, Senegalese, Siamese, Sudanese, Taiwanese, These, Viennese, and Vietnamese.

What constitutes an ese?

Why are they not Koreanese?

Or Americanese?

Ese’s are really bothering me today.

That’s all.

Carry on.

Verbal Disease:

Attention class...

News Readers say it.

Commercial Voiceover Artists say it.

You say it.

I say it.

We all say it.

We all say, ‘Ardy‘.

The word is, ‘Already‘.

As in ALL READY.

NOT ARDY!

Now that I have ardy broughten it to your attention span see how many times a day you actually say it or hear others say it.

Educated people no less.

I know I’m a hick but when a nine year old from Mississippi pointed it out to me a few years ago I must admit that I was astonished. In the south we contract our language because we're lazy. Unfortunately copying Southernisms has become very popular.

Take for instance, ‘Ya’ll’

What was once considered the epitome of Britney Spears has now swept the nation. I simply won’t abide a Long Island broad sayin', ya’ll.

Say it with me, A-L-R-E-A-D-Y.

There, that’s much better.

Make the conscious effort to pronounce the whole word before, ‘ardy’ finds it’s way into the dictionary.

Class is dismissed.

Verbal Disease:

Today’s Assignment:

Use three verbal pet peeves in one coherent sentence.

I'll go first,

"Satistically speaking of course and when referring to it pacifically it is known as the Specific ocean."

Now you try.

Obamanation:

I think I have finally narrowed my selection for the 2008 presidential candidates. I will only vote for the candidates that can actually pronounce the word, Nuclear. It’s not that hard and to demonstrate I have laboriously copied a pronunciation guide from dictionary dot com.

nu·cle·ar [noo-klee-er, nyoo- or, by metathesis, -kyuh-ler]

1. pertaining to or involving atomic weapons: nuclear war.

In pronouncing nuclear, the second and third syllables are most commonly said as [-klee-er] a sequence of sounds that directly reflects the spelled sequence -cle·ar. In recent years, a somewhat controversial pronunciation has come to public attention, with these two final syllables said as [-kyuh-ler]. Since [-klee-er], the common pronunciation of -cle·ar, might also be represented, broadly, as [-kluh-yer] the [kyuh-ler] pronunciation can be seen as coming from a process of metathesis, in which the [l] and the [y] change places. The resulting pronunciation is reinforced by analogy with such words as molecular, particular, and muscular, and although it occurs with some frequency among highly educated speakers, including scientists, professors, and government officials, it is disapproved of by many.

Also I shall consider any candidate that knows the difference between Specific/Pacific and can enunciate said difference.

"Specifically it is known as the Pacific Ocean."

Another thing, I have totally decided that I am voting for Paris Hilton as Fake President.

I like to call this particular verbal disease, Emphatic Stutter. Last night I was watching my local news and a certain city councilman, Marty Donovan, who is not well liked, was being interviewed. The discussion concerned a nasty red clay that was seeping into a million dollar Green Shores project. It seems the clay is a byproduct of interstate rebuilding and was being pumped directly into the Pensacola Bay. The bay itself suffers from over fishing, red tide, and numerous other ailments. Mr. Donovan proceeded to exhibit signs of Emphatic Stutter and while being interviewed he said, "This red clay perdicament is really, really, really bad and it is very, very, very dangerous". Okay, if something is said to be dangerous, I'm going to stay away, but does it make it more dangerous by adding "very" into the warning? If something is bad, well then it’s bad. Then really bad must be worse, and really, really bad must be despicable, so thusly, really, really, really, bad of course is monstrous. How many "very’s" and “really’s” does it take to get through to today's feeble and vocabulary challenged public?

Ever found yourself stuck in some verbal catch-phrase loop? I myself have found this to be happening at this very moment. The phrase in question, "Pretty Much". It's an all purpose answer for all things obvious.

Gee David is that what you think? "Pretty Much"

Oh isn't the weather horrible today? "Pretty Much"

Do you think he has latent homosexual tendencies? “Pretty Much”

I seem to have caught this verbal virus from an acquaintance that suffers from among other things, a poorly developed country vocabulary. I only recently noticed this odd colloquial repetitive tick when in the course of conversation I seemed to have infected those around me. Soon the discourse degenerated into odd catch phrases that seemed to be perked up by the inclusion and by my introduction of the new phrase, “Pretty Much”. When we all began to answer one another’s questions with, “Pretty Much” a lightening bolt struck my skull and I immediately headed for the drug cabinet and washed my mouth out with peroxide. It pretty much has subsided pretty much, but pretty much is still pretty much with me!

Cliché:

cli·ché [klee-shey, kli]

A trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse.

I'm really sick of business Clichés!

Below are my top three most despised of this particular verbal disease.

1. 24/7
2. Step up to the plate.
3. My plate is full.

R.I.P.

Save The Music: Beyoncé

Mission Statement:

"The VH1 Save The Music Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring instrumental music education in America’s public schools, and raising awareness about the importance of music as a part of each child’s complete education."

A worthwhile cause to rally behind as our nations school system is falling apart. The funding for art programs has disappeared as a result of “No Kid Left Behind” and in Florida the preparation for FCAT testing has replaced traditional curriculum. An individual schools future is based on the percentage of students passing these tests and teacher’s jobs are left hanging in the balance.

I question The VH1 Save The Music Foundation’s wisdom in recruiting Beyoncé Knowles as a spokesperson. Yes she is lovely, and yes she is a music factory, but has Beyoncé actually attended a school? I say nay. When Beyoncé opens her mouth you can practically hear the entire barnyard flowing out like a farmer slopping the pigs. She’s even said as much in interviews where she stops, slows down and corrects her lazy grammar saying, “God that sound country.” Her corrections are even incorrect. The syntax, verb conjugation, and pronoun usage is almost always inaccurate. While viewing her VH1 Save The Music Foundation’s commercial I’m struck by her ineptitude to effectively convey a message or maybe a more effective message would be that: Beyoncé is the Poster Child for this organization.

A few grammatical errors found in this Public Service Announcement:

“Music helped me love school”

“Music gave me purpose”

“I became a whole nother person”

Watch for yourselves...