Please watch your language

I recently heard an interview on TV between a host and a very famous person in which the guest used the world “like” a total of 37 times in a six-plus minute interview. “Like, being able to have a phone call and, like, hear what she’s been through and, like, she’s paved the way…she’s kind of, like, she’s, like, lended her very, like, magical, wonderful wise approach to…”

For good measure, she tossed in a half dozen “ya knows” and asked “right?” a few times.

The English language can be a beautiful thing. Twenty-six letters in the alphabet that can be mixed and matched to form words, that form sentences, that form thoughts. It can be a challenging language for newcomers to learn. For example, three words can sound the same, but are spelled differently and mean different things like to, too, two. The same spelling such as “ough” can have several pronunciations. Think of “tough, through, though, cough, plough.”

Nevertheless, the United States, and much of the world, uses English to communicate. I have spent my entire adult life using it to make a living.

You can rest assured that I care very much for our language and there are numerous things that people do, especially with the spoken word, that drive me nuts. Let me share some of them with you and vent a little.

So, let’s start with this one. Why do people start so many sentences with the word “so?” There’s a renowned Washington Post columnist that appears regularly in TV interviews. After a question, he almost always starts his answer, “So, in answer to your question,” etc., etc. He knows better. He doesn’t write the word “so” in his column like that, why say it? Use it sparingly, only when necessary.

A news anchor on CNN constantly asks, “right?” after many statements or questions. That’s become a common irritant of mine. Why are you asking someone else if you’re right continually? You should already know that. If not, you may be in the wrong business.

Another pet peeve of yours truly is people using “big,” unusual words when writing or speaking. I guess they think it makes them sound smarter. Maureen Dowd is a columnist for the New York Times that I read. In nearly every column she tosses in a few words I never heard of. George Will is another one I like and read. But I think George has a thesaurus next to his keyboard. He looks up a plain, simple word he could use in his column and finds the most sophisticated and unusual synonym of it and uses it instead.

I grant you, I’m no Rhodes Scholar, but I shouldn’t need a dictionary or a thesaurus to read a newspaper.

I have another friend who says, “you know?” after every third sentence or so. No, I don’t know! You’re wasting valuable time. Get to the point!

The habit that makes me the craziest I alluded to in the opening paragraph. The use of the word “like” inappropriately in spoken English. I once asked a young Harvard graduate if she wrote the word “like” in her essays as often as she said it in conversation. She became quite indignant, but it made her, in my view, sound like an uneducated Valley Girl.

One scholar I read said, “Imagine if someone running for political office used the word “like” the way our peers do (“Like, yes we can!”), or if your doctor started using it while diagnosing your condition (“You have, like, cancer”), or if you used it in a job interview (“I am, like, passionate about this position because of my, like, interest in marketing”).

Imagine John F. Kennedy, in his eloquent Inaugural Address saying, “And so my fellow Americans, like, ask not what your country can, like, do for you, ask, like, what you can do for your country.” Or Ronald Reagan telling us. “We have, like, a rendezvous with, like, destiny.”

Kind of diminishes the point, wouldn’t you agree? So, thanks for letting me, like, vent, right? I feel better, ya know? Oh, like, Merry Christmas!

Contact Rick at tct@pageone-inc.com