Okay, maybe we could use a lesson on the language

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© St. Petersburg Times
published February 28, 2003

As soon as I saw a story about The 2003 List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness, I fell immediately into a defensive posture.

First, I asked petulantly, what right does a small Michigan college like Lake Superior State have to tell the rest of us how to talk? The school is on Michigan's Upper Peninsula -- where the most frequently used word is "brrrrrr!" and where the natives are notoriously smug about being the only Michiganders who don't hold up their left hand, palm out, to use as a map to point out where they live.

And, second, this is America. We don't speak the queen's English. We speak the president's English, which has fewer syllables, frequently contains words found in no dictionary and is a weird patois of Texas cowboy heavily seasoned with governmentspeak.

But the list is a good reminder of some words and terms that either never should have been introduced or have become shopworn from overuse.

And, of course, I did an immediate computer search to see how guilty I was of using the terms.

Actually, I came out okay.

I had never used the phrases "material breach;" "must-see TV;" "now, more than ever;" or "on the ground."

That is "on the ground," as in TV-speak. Television news people are frequently "on the ground in Kuwait," or "on the ground in Washington," which always makes me think the next shot should be of a reporter speaking while lying on the ground, head resting on one hand.

TV people are almost always on the ground, except when they are doing weather stories. Then they are always wearing slickers and standing up to their knees in the nearest available body of water.

But writers do fall into overuse of terms.

I -- and the Michigan folks concur -- was never easy with "weapons of mass destruction."

Just about everything bigger than a rifle is intended to be a weapon of mass destruction, depending on the size of the mass you are talking about.

As nearly as I can remember, it was Saddam Hussein who introduced the word into the vernacular when he started lobbing Scuds into Israel and telling everyone he had "weapons of mass destruction," which he now seems conveniently to have misplaced.

The term, to me, has always rung of painfully translated assembly instructions for toys made in foreign countries, like: "First place the wheel of large and easy rotation into the fork of the front part of the frame."

I prefer to say nuclear -- mostly because, unlike the president, I can actually pronounce it -- or biological or chemical weapons.

And though I do agree on terms such as "must-see TV" (a marketing slogan), "It's a good thing" (the trademark slogan of a famous stock trader who used to cook a lot), and "got game" (a term used by sportscasters trying to sound street-smart and winding up sounding stupid) -- I disagree with the group on "peel-and-eat" shrimp. That has always struck me as a serviceable phrase describing a dish that I may or may not order depending on how cool I want to look while eating it.

But the thought of restaurants takes me to a recently acquired pet peeve, which is "no problem," as a standard answer from people who shouldn't have a problem, as in food servers asked for a glass of water or discount store clerks asked to get an item displayed on a shelf 14 feet above the floor.

Usually a simple "sure" or "right away" will suffice. If you've worked in a restaurant more than a week, then you shouldn't want people to think that finding out where they keep the ketchup is a problem.

My biggest word-use failing is hyperbole. I never had a good meal, I had an "unbelievably good" meal, which makes me wonder why more people don't respond: "If it's unbelievable, how do you expect me to believe you?"

I have "awesome" weekends, when they were merely fun and didn't inspire much awe, and "fabulous" trips about which nobody is going to write a fable. I have had the "worst time of my life," way too many times for someone who has only lived 59 years.

My all-time overused word (799 times in 14 years): "really," which I would elaborate on, but I really don't have the space.

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