Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Far brighter than I have written at length (sometimes boring because no one reads what they say except thr already converted) about the destruction of the spoken word as we have nourished it from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood.
If you missed what Dick Cavett had to say about the destruction of language through solecism, misspelling, mispronunciation, and flagrant distortion, you will have to check back issues of the New York Times and find it. (It may have been Thursday February 27th. Notice - there is an "r" before the "u" in that word. And "eck-cetra" is spelled et cetera - or simply etc. but not eck.)
Cavett's best sally was his reponse to the flight attendant who announced: "We will be landing momentarily." Cavett's question: "Will we have time to get off the plane?"
The deepest well of grammatical humour is the sportcaster. Knowing, as the late Dick Beddoes used to say, that there is nothing serious or important about professional sports, the commentators are obliged to overuse and invent flowery phrases to give their vocation more recognition than it deserves.
I happen to be a sports fan. But will someone tell me why they insist on embellishments like: "as of thus far" when they mean "so far" or "yet." Or such-and-such a player is "28 years of age."
Come on. If someone asked you how old you were you'd reply - 28 years old. You would not say "28 years of age."
The sadness is, as I wrote above, that the people to whom we direct this gentle scolding don't read what we say.
If they did they would stop saying "at this point in time" and replace it with "now."
Gotta go. Getting late. Have to lay down.
A few months ago, certain Toronto councillors were up in arms because the TTC chose to buy new rolling stock from a company in Thunder Bay. The opposition said we failed the taxpayers by not buying at the lowest price. Sounds fair. Except the choice was made to keep jobs in Canada.
Yes, they could have gone to Siemens in Germany (I think that was the company) and paid - according to Siemens - less.
Is what you believe in for sale to the highest (or lowest) bidder? Are we so caught up in commerce and judging life by profit/loss statistics? Is there a better reason for a decision than bottom line?
I can't watch those warm and fuzzy Air Canada TV commercials - the ones where the big jet is parked in your driveway - without getting angry. I always ask: how many Brazilians fly Air Canada? Yes, it was a question of money, and when Air Canada wanted short-range jets they chose the lowest bid: Embraer. Bombardier lost out.
Canada lost out.
There is more to life than the bottom line.