Just a
short rant
I am becoming ever more pedantic with the passing . . . days.
I find fault with so many things. For example, why cannot The Times of London
employ a proofreader? Every day there are glaring inaccuracies, misleading headlines
and grammatical errors in the reports that are printed.
I have an issue with the use of ‘gifted’ as a verb. When did ‘gave’
pass out of the English lexicon?
In fact, I am irritated by the use of nouns as verbs. To hear
that someone has ‘podiumed’ or ‘medalled’ makes my teeth itch. ‘Hoovered’ has
long been established as a verb but why don’t people ‘Dyson’ or ‘Shark’ or ‘Miele’
or ‘Numatic’?
However, maybe my greatest bête noire, is hearing ‘of’ used
instead of ‘have’, as in, ‘I could of screamed’, ‘They might of forgotten’.
‘Fun’ can never be an adjective either, as far as I am concerned,
but it is easier to say things like, ‘It was a fun time’, rather than think of
a more appropriate adjective. Certainly, I know some teachers who use ‘fun’ as
an adjective.
Perhaps the truth is that language is evolving and I’m just
not evolving with it.
Perhaps the truth is that I’m a miserable pettifogger, out of
touch with the times.
English is a rich and beautiful language and we do it a
disservice to reduce it to hackneyed phrases and impoverished vocabulary.
Please tell me I’m mistaken;-)