Saturday, March 02, 2002

The wave of the future is mired in the past
Oh, you must read Tom Mangan's collection of words and expressions that should be Banned For Life... er, that is, "forever banned from the nation's news reports".

My own pet peeves (since there's no obvious way to contribute to Tom's list, I'll post them here):

"[Something] remains to be seen" when referring to any future event or unresolved question. Isn't it obvious?
"This much is certain": I expect you to be certain of everything you tell me, else why bother?
"First annual": You can't know it'll be annual until the second one happens.
"Diva": I don't think it means what you think it means. It's not a compliment.
"Jewelry": It's pronounced ju-el-ry, not ju-le-ry. Oddly, even people who make their living selling it make this mistake.

And speak in complete sentences, please! Next time you're watching a news report, count 'em. I don't mean comments from so-called normal people: I mean the deliberately-scripted choppy fragments that news anchors string together and call "reporting" these days.

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