Alright Is All Right by Me

Fighting about all right and alright? Kiss and make up. I’m here to help.

A huffy and angry Warriner in English Composition and Grammar (1988) warns, “There is no such word as alright.”

Harrumph. So there. It doesn’t exist.

Yeah, but, everyone’s writing it that way.

Let’s check another source, this one from 1998. My rock Gardener (who has never once thanked me for all the accolades I throw in his direction) proclaims: “Alright for all right has never been accepted as standard in AmE. Still, the one-word spelling may be coming into acceptance in BrE.”

Oh, dear. The master might lose his adoring student (that’s me) over this matter. So, off I run to the Oxford English Dictionary and, sure enough, the Brits are not at all put off by alright. However, they do direct the seeker as follows: “Adjective, adverb & noun. See all right.”

Oxford adds, “The spelling alright is often considered erroneous, but cf. analogous already, although, etc.”

And so I do.

I think it’s all right to allow alright to fly free. I know this is the right decision, because MS Word’s grammar check doesn’t put a cautionary red line under the word. Mind you, you're hearing this from a prescriptivist. (MS Word doesn't approve the word prescriptivist.)

Elderly Is a Bowed Back

On this morning’s news, I was shocked and dismayed to hear that a 62-year-old “elderly woman” had been attacked in her own home!

Well, get over it, Joan. Mugging is a way of life among druggies, and non-druggies haven’t gotten fed up enough to fight back.

Yes, but if I get mugged after my next birthday next April, a news writer at my local television station will feel free to spit out the same headline: “Elderly Woman Mugged!”

Me? Elderly?

Help!

While Gardener believes that “[T]his adjective is a euphemism for aged or old” (Dictionary of Modern Usage, 242), I maintain that it suggests a certain degree of physical disintegration that bows the back, shrinks the skull, and elongates the ears. None of this has happened to me yet, so naturally I get a little shook up when I’m about to be labeled elderly. What can I do? Avoid getting mugged?

I wonder if the adjective would have applied if that unfortunate mugging victim had made television news with a more positive occurrence—say, winning the lottery or knocking out an opponent in a wrestling match. In that case, they’d probably call her feisty.

But, when I think about a few well known women who are around my age, I can’t imagine hearing them called “elderly”: Cher, Dolly Parton, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman. How about Jane Fonda and Martha Stewart? They’re even older. And, let’s not forget the oldest loud woman in the world, Joan Rivers.

So, elderly seems to be reserved for women without fame, money, or position who suffer from some sort of physical malady. Well, so far in life, I've managed to get by without meeting any of these requirements. Whew. Now I don't have to worry about being mugged.

Oprah, CNN: A Formerly Badly Picture of I & Lucy

Oprah, dearest, what's to be done about those lexical and grammatical flubs you toss so carelessly into the television airwaves? That’s not “a picture of Nelson Mandela and I”; it’s a picture of Nelson Mandela and me.

And, please don’t feel “badly” [sic] about messing up nominatives and objectives or adjectives and adverbs. Sure, the mess ups are badly done, but only about two people in the entire English-speaking world care. However, we two people feel bad, because people listen to you and, alas, copy you as well.

Oprah's not the only public person to commit grammatical misdemeanors. CNN commentators, who really should know better, have nothing on her. Last week, a CNN anchor—Jim Something—said that Fred Thompson had "formerly" announced that he was running for president. Formerly!

Worse, he referred to my beautiful Luciano Pavarotti as Lucy-ano Pavarotti! How could he have done that? In fact, he did it twice; then, someone must have kicked him under the table, for he suddenly began to pronounce his name correctly.

I'm telling you, television people do dreadful dark evils to English.

Her Is Fighting With He?

Is it possible? Could it be? I can’t absolutely confirm this, but, unless mine ears doth lie, I heard CNN news reporter Paul Steinhauser say in reference to Hillary Clinton, “Her and Barack Obama are fighting it out.” Tsk-tsk. (Really perplexing is the fact that Microsoft’s grammar checker doesn’t find fault with this construction.)

Horrified, I began to flick through the channels looking for grammar relief. But, I was in for one linguistic dismay after another.

1. From a morning newscaster: “It is now 6:15, or somethin’ like that.”
2. From another newscaster: “Heath Leger and Michelle Williams have split up.” (Not so much a grammar problem, but who are these people and why is this news?)
3. From yet another newsperson: “What a beach bummer for people in New Jersey.”
4. From someone selling a product: “I’m a very picky eater. All the things I was eating normal.” ( Microsoft’s grammar checker doesn’t find fault with this construction either.)
5. From another salesperson: “This is incredible, amazing, wonderful. This just blows you away.”
   

I hear a superheroine named "Word Girl” is now buzzing through the airwaves of children’s entertainment. Good luck, kid. Could you fly by CNN and give them a few pointers?

By the way, Microsoft Word’s Spellchecker approves of the word “superhero,” but draws a red line of warning under the word “superheroine."

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.

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.)

Literally Malapropary

John Gardner’s Dictionary of Modern Usage lists a series of “vogue words” (pg.682) that include expressions such as bottom line and lifestyle and worst-case scenario” In fact, he could have extended the list to include a few hundred additional lexical trendyisms. I mean if we dialogue in any given environment, we’d all interface in a meaningful way, right? It’s a no-brainer, a win-win situation whose parameters would resonate with a synergy that would definitely impact our cutting-edge society in a constructive way.

Darn! He didn’t include literally on the list. Oh, well. I’ll just fill that one in here. And, now, fresh from the medium of television, some literally unliteral lexical malapropisms:

When I heard the news, it literally blew my mind. (And yet she continues to sit up and speak.)

It’s a literal can of worms. (In Washington? Okay, maybe it is.)

Looking out over the desert, it’s a literal ocean of sand. (Well, I guess this could pass as a metaphor; but, I say an ocean should remain an ocean and a desert should remain a desert.)

The crowd was silent, literally crying, “Foul!” (Some trick.)

He’s so awesome, I was like literally dying. (And then what happened?)

“There’s a pool of blood under the tarp literally covering the body.” (Those tarps are always so literal.)

The audience literally walked out of the auditorium. (How would you suggest that they walk out?)

Why don't I avoid regular television programming? (Literally speaking, of course.)

I Sanction That: Or Do I?

A friend of mine resents the confounding ambiguity of the word “sanction.”

“Well, just avoid using the word,” I suggest. No, that’s not reasonable. He wants to find the guilty party who started this mess.

So, I promise to do a little research on the matter. All the word-history websites offer the same explanation, verbatim, and without references, so I won’t repeat it here. In my own words, this is the sad little story.

Let’s start with our lexical stepmother and a very kind one at that—Latin. “Sanction” comes from the Latin sancio (sacire sanxi sanctum), meaning “to consecrate or make hallow by a religious act” (Cassell’s Latin Dictionary). According to The Free Dictionary online, the first use of “sanction” appears in the 1500s, but try as I might, I couldn’t find the actual quotation. However, it was used in reference to “law,” or “decree.”

Evidently, during the 100 years or so that followed, the word did a little twisting and turning and came to refer to “the penalty enacted to cause one to obey a law or decree” (cf the Free Dictionary, which gives no references, so who knows how true this is).

Since we get most of our lexicon—that is, our classy lexicon, our big words—directly from French rather than indirectly from Latin, I went hunting on the Web for current French usage and discovered a conference titled “Sanctionner sans punir” (to sanction without punishment), which means the French use “sanction” to mean “to prohibit. An article in a French journal is titled “Il faut sanctionner le négationnisme.” Again, the word is used to mean “prohibit.”

I skimmed numerous French-language blogs in which "sanction" was synonymous with "prohibit" and was about to close the book on the matter when ambiguity showed its tragicomic face in a reference to Robespierre, which translates as follows: “Robespierre never sanctioned the French Revolution.”

Well, did he or didn’t he? I need a good historian to answer that one. As one of its leaders, he certainly wasn’t against it, but since he first profited by it and then lost his head to it, I don’t know whether he neglected to prohibit it or neglected to give it his okay. Alas. So the French have the same problem. So do the Italians with “sanzione.” Sere can we lay the blame?

Well, we all know what happens when lawyers get their claws into language. They spin it and twirl it and create all sorts of knots that leave the rest of us in a state of confusion too much to bear. So, we give up and let the lawyers have their way with us and with our language. My theory is that sanction, originally a clear little noun to mean a law sanctified by the church or some religious order, became clouded after it was turned into a verb by all those fancy sycophants who hang around government buildings and make their living playing with language in order to protect their guilty clients from evil truth—lawyers. And, since we can’t beat them at this game, my advice stands: simply refuse to use the word.

The touch of irony here is that my friend has no problem using the expression “you guys” when he’s talking to groups of men and women. I always have to ask him if he’s talking to the women as well as to the men. And he thinks I go too far and should “get a life,” a remark I consider unsanctionable.

Diction, My Dear. Diction.

I still haven’t figured out how to shrug and walk away when I’m surprised by little linguistic thuds dropped by people who should know better. It’s okay if regular folks commit grammatical and lexical sins. In fact, I like the way their lexical and grammatical diversions stretch the language, make it more alive, more touchable, more powerful even.

But when newscasters say things like, “he paid the ultimate sacrifice” (one sacrifices; one doesn’t pay a sacrifice) or “there’s [sic] 300 people outside the studio,” I can’t help but squirm. I mean, it’s bad enough that they can’t stop calling one another “guys.” When I hear teachers slip up on Grammar 101 in front of their students with remarks such as “He wants to see you and I [sic] in the office” or “I feel badly [sic],” it’s all I can do not to correct them. My friend Peter can say “I feel badly,” because he knows better, and he likes to work at sounding not quite as brilliant as he is. Other people can say it, too. But not teachers. Not newscasters. And, not even talk show hosts.

Most annoying of all are the writers—and not just the immature bloggers who are trying to sound all grown up and trendy—who smudge their copy with words such as “totally” and “awesome” and “f---ing.” I couldn’t bring myself to write that last word.

It’s easy writing. And, like a fill-in-the-numbers painting, it’s boring.

There, I feel all vented.

Train Wrecks among the Pop Stars

The phrase of the week among newscasters is “train wreck.” I counted eleven “train wrecks” in one six-minute segment of a news program yesterday. I think it started with the alleged crazy astronaut in diapers and then, of course, quickly switched to Anna Nicole, who was soon upstaged by the Brittney buzz cut. In between, we were treated to numerous references to other pop stars in and out of jail (and rehab) for drunken driving or drug-induced ticks—all of whom earned the adjectival “train wreck” or “train wreck waiting to happen.”

Can’t they stop? No, not the train wrecks. I really don’t care about them, although I’m beginning to wonder if “train wrecks” only reference females. I’m referring to the newscasters who spend weeks or months stomping the same horrible phrases into linguistic dust.

The Daily Show recently highlighted the use of “embolden” among politicians. I think someone taught Bush the big word and told him to start using it. I’m sure he practiced pronouncing it for many minutes before trying it in front of the news camera. Pleased with this new word, he used it over and over and over and over until all his cronies picked it up and “ran with it.”

I’ve got to stop listening to the news.