Yearly Rant

In my best Bruce Buffer voice: It's T I I I I ME. 

Time for what?

It's time for my yearly language rant.

OK. What are you unhappy about now?

Not too much, actually. 

Really?

Really. One of my pet peeves is beginning to disappear. 

What's that?

"Going forward." It was all the rave, and I swanny I rarely hear it now and have not heard it at all in several weeks.

Come to think of it, you're right. I haven't hear it in a while either.

I guess it's like "at the end of the day." Remember that one? You could not listen to sports talk without hearing it over and over and over. Now, no one says it. I guess the end its day finally came. Looks like "going forward" is going away also.

Well, that must make a language snob like you happy. 

It does, it does. But there are still some unfortunate things happening in English. 

Like what?

I was watching college football the other day, and those receivers are still "high-pointing" footballs. I declare, how do they do that?

They catch it at its highest point.

Which is where it is when it gets to them unless they can levitate the ball. Can they do that, levitate the ball?

I don't think they can.

And footballs are still sailing on quarterbacks. I mean, seems like football manufacturers would get sued over balls that do their own thing, that disregard the laws of physics and sail away on their own.

It just means the quarterback threw a bad pass.

Which is what the announcer should say instead of making it sound like the ball does its own thing. 

Lighten up.

No. I don't like that or these talking sports heads pluralizing singular entities.

What do you mean?

I mean, saying something like, the LSUs and the Georgias and the Floridas. I heard that just last Saturday. There is only one LSU and one Georgia and one Florida. They do the same thing with players names . . . .

OK, I got it.

You have it.

Stop.

I will not.

So what else you got.

I'll tell you what I have, a good one. I heard something the other day that I liked.

Really?

Really. I don't know if he coined it or not, but on YouTube I heard Josh Bryant say "testicular fortitude." Now that is a term right there. I'll be stealing that one.

Well, I'm happy to see you happy.

And I'm happy that you're happy that I'm happy. Thank you very much.