Friday, August 17, 2007

Express Yourself: Erase Your Face

It’s true that we can convince people that black is white or hot is cold or fake is real. Lawyers do it for a living and get paid very well indeed for having developed this skill. “The video tape clearly shows that my client robbed the convenience store in self-defense,” claims the lawyer without cracking a smile. Even little kids—perhaps future lawyers or advertising executives—know how to manipulate language in order to transfer fact into the cloudy realm of reasonable doubt: “The dish got broke.” “The ball went into the window.”

All it takes is a little twisting of lexicon and syntax as well as an unwavering belief in one’s own version of what is real, and people do start to wonder if their heretofore grasp of reality is perhaps a little off-kilter. That’s why reality and illusion are always bumping into each other in courtrooms and advertising copy.

The latest lexical trick comes from the makers of Botox with their new advertising slogan, “Express yourself.”

In essence, they are telling us that they will stick needles in our faces to eradicate all those nasty facial expressions we’ve developed over the years, plump out our thought lines, polish away our life experiences, and turn us into expressionless clones of one another.

Sure, at first glance, you might not agree that wiping out your face’s ability to move is a way of expressing yourself. But, that’s because you’ve only heard it once or twice. After a few months of advertising, you’ll begin to understand why it’s impossible to express yourself with all those facial expressions getting in the way.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Alleged Perps & Crimes

Hypercorrection occurs when speakers pockmark a language with misapplied rules of grammar, pronunciation, semantics, syntax, etc. They’re just trying to do the right thing, and it gets them all twisted up. That’s why you’ll hear people say things such as, “He wants to speak to you and I [sic]” or “I pledge allegiance … to the Republic for Richard Stands” [really sic, but true] or “I thank whomever is responsible” [super sic].

Political hypercorrection is an extension of linguistic hypercorrection, and I hear it almost daily on my trusty local and national news shows. (I don’t hear it on international news programs, because broadcast companies in the USA don’t offer these. No one exists but us.) And, the hypercorrect word of the week is “alleged.”

Because we live in a society that (allegedly) defends the innocence of those accused of crimes until they are found guilty in a court of law—even if the crime is recorded on camera—we are morally and legally obligated to refer to the accused as “alleged” perpetrators; hence, we have alleged murderers, alleged robbers, alleged child molesters, and so on.

Lately, however, I’ve noticed newscasters referring to alleged crimes. “The alleged attack took place on Saturday night.” “The man was arrested for the alleged robbery.” And the implication-charged, “The alleged rape...”

Well, I protest. There’s no moral or legal reason to call a crime “alleged,” for that tag accuses the victim—or am I supposed to say alleged victim?—of lying, dramatizing, or using the legal system for dishonest purposes.

I often make fun of newscasters for their grammatical blunders, their giggling, their repetition of “you guys,” but it’s not all their fault, since they’re hired for the cut of their highlighted hair and impossibly white teeth, not for their writing or journalistic skills. News stations are in the business of money making, so I can’t really fault the producers.

However, I do fault the writers, who should know better. If there’s a body wrapped in duct tape decomposing under a tarp, it’s not an alleged murder. If there’s a video recording of a convenience-store robbery, it’s not an alleged robbery. It really happened, people.

Yo, television writers! Here’s a project for you. Every day, just once a day, and you can have weekends off, open any grammar book at random and let your finger drop to the page. Then read one or two sentences about the structure of your language. If you do this five days a week for a year, just think of the possibilities!

It’s not politically incorrect for you to create clear copy so that newscasters can speak on a higher than elementary-school level.

Oh, dear. Perhaps it is. (I gotta get with it.)