#matt denn

[paradoxsounds]

[ryearick]

THE WAR CONTINUES

Pet Peeves of Readers

It always amazes me at the range of words and phrases that annoy people – their “pet peeves.” Often, these words or phrases aren’t even wrong, they’re just used too often, or inappropriately. Take, for example, this response I got when in my last Out & About column I asked readers to submit linguistic annoyances:

  I enjoy your column very much, and it has probably helped many people, including me. I have a few "pet" phrases in vogue that irk me. The latest one is "Going forward ", as in “We will be taking a closer look at that mass murderer, going forward". Which is better than doing so "going backward" perhaps? I think '"in the future" works fine, or nothing at all, since the future is implied, and obvious in most cases. On TV, I absolutely cringe when an anchor person watches a dispatch and then says to the person in the field, "Mary, thank you for that". How about simply: "Thank you, Mary". "Thank you for that" has a very weird ring to it, if you consider it -- did Mary give the anchor a bottle of wine, a chocolate, or a hot date, along with her snippet of dispatch? On the political shows, for emphasis the talking heads always use "Look" as in "Look, Chris, Romney is rather clueless", or "Look, Bob, I am being condescending by saying the word " look ", as if you are some kind of unobservant oaf”.

            Speaking of annoying, this reader (and writer) commits the all-too-common mistake of placing periods and commas outside quotation marks. As I have written repeatedly, this is okay if you’re writing for a United Kingdom audience, but here in the good ol’ US of A, periods and commas go inside the quotes. This seems counter-intuitive to most people, and I estimate that about 70 percent of the emails I receive get this wrong. This preponderance of mistakes leads me to predict, in the September issue of O&A, that the UK style will be accepted by all “in the near future.” (Also predicting that “he graduated college” will be an acceptable replacement for “he graduated from college.” I continue to fight the war on words, but sometimes I lose a battle.)

Media Watch

            Just heard on WDEL that Jill Biden is “Delaware’s own second lady.” No, she isn’t. She’s the nation’s second lady. If Delaware has a second lady, it would the wife of Matt Denn, the lieutenant governor. I think the station owes Mrs. Denn an apology.