The other night, a television news anchor asked some expert if he thought a proposed constitutional change was a “must pass.”
I grimaced at the expression, as I often grimace nowadays at the way the English language is being used by journalists on TV and in newspapers and magazines.
A “must pass”, I guess, is an offshoot of the “must see” and the “must read”, phrases which have been around, unfortunately, for too long. They seem innocent enough and probably they are. But what’s next? The “must eat”, the “must visit”, the “must drink?” Keep it up, TV news readers and soon my TV will be a “must unplug.”
One particular nightly newsman is out in the lead of those who just can’t find that right word or combination of words among the 400,000 English language words at our disposal and so, must invent some new ones. Or at least, come up with new uses for some old ones. And the constitution controversy seems to have set his word-inventing mechanism into overdrive. For a while, he kept talking about efforts to “unbundle” the proposed “accord”. Do you know what that means? I don’t.
He also loved to quote the Canadian prime minister who kept insisting that the accord was a “done deal” and I swear I saw a twinkle in the newsman’s eyes every time he said it.
In today’s media-driven world, words have become little status symbols, used to “impress” as much as to “express” and making an impression is the name of the game. Therefore, you have another news anchor saying that the expert she intends to interview in another city is being “conferenced” and will be on the air shortly. It’s too much too ask, I guess, for her to tell her viewers that a conference call is being placed to so-and-so. Instead, a noun – conference – has to become a verb and those who don’t like it are crochety old rednecks like me.
Being “sexy” used to mean having “sex appeal.” No more. Now, “sexy” is an adjective to describe something – anything – that appeals to the silent majority. Supporters of everything from reducing acid rain to upgrading health-care facilities explain their lack of progress by claiming their cause isn’t “sexy” enough for the general public.
People used to “sign” deals. Now they “ink” them. They used to collect “information” and then “study” it. Now, they assemble “data” and then “massage” it.
What did we ever do before the “troubleshooter” came along? Or the “’change agent?”
And what does it mean to “ballpark” something? Does that mean to leave something at the ballpark or does it mean someone’s going to come up with a “ballpark” figure about something? And what in the world would qualify a numerical figure to not be absolutely precise but instead, just a ballpark number?
We’ve been “earmarking” things for so long, I can’t even remember what we did before that. We used to total up projected costs of things. Now, we “expense” them. Not for us are the “guess” or the “estimate.” Now, we “guesstimate”, of course.
What does it mean to be in a “mentoring relationship?” And if you’re “short listed”, is that good?
What is the difference between a “lifemate” and a “lovemate?” What are you doing when you’re “liaisoning?”
I guess I should stop my word “bashing” and look for the “positives” in all of this. But I worry about where all this word play is going to end up. In a society which says it has a major problem with illiteracy, don’t journalists above all have a duty to make sure the consumers of their news can understand what they’re trying to tell them? Where’s it all going to end?
Perhaps I should contact the woman who, according to a press release I recently received, was scheduled to “crystal ball” about the future at an upcoming conference. Crystal balling, please forgive me, sounds almost painful.
In fact, maybe I could conference her about her conference.
A recent national newspaper article explored the practice of “stopping out” – a combination of “stopping” and “dropping out.” Yuppies do it when their “stressors” get the best of them.
These days, that sounds like a pretty sexy idea to me.
©1990 Jim Hagarty
