500th Post

I guess it's not a big deal, but it's a big deal. This is my 500th blog post and for some reason I feel like I need to celebrate. Maybe I'll open up a Snickers Bar in a little while and shoot a poetry video if my favorite poet, Samuel Lott, will show up. To celebrate in words, however, I chose to revisit a couple of things I hashed out earlier.

Thanks to Shawn C. Turner, I now cannot listen to anything on TV without hearing someone use the redundant term "moving forward." Shawn's comments on that phrase were that going forward is about the only way you can go when you talk about the future. I am paraphrasing from memory so I am not expressing that nearly as eloquently as he did. It really is nauseating to me now and one would think someone would have the good sense and concern for the people who have to listen to them to make them stop. But they just keep saying it. That is just one of the many unnecessary redundancies that repeat too much and say the same things over and over again. 

One I complained about in an earlier post is the now common description of wide receivers in football catching the ball at its "highest point." Where else can they catch the ball except where the ball is when it gets to them? Gary Danielson of CBS does this constantly, and I have heard other announcers do the same. Kirk Herbstreet has even turned the impossible expression into a verb. Now over and over he praises players who "highpoint the ball." Please, somebody make him stop. Make him stop. I looked for him on Facebook so I could tell him myself. All I found was an automatically generated picture. He apparently doesn't do Facebook. 

I also complained about people using subjective pronouns where objective ones are called for. This has become so pervasive that I have actually begun to hear English teachers talk this way. Make them stop, please. Whenever people say, "I and ______" they automatically go into the subjective case even if the objective case is called for. Example, "The linebacker is giving he and the running backs trouble." Please shut up and never talk again, if this is you. This error has become so pervasive that it is even taking over other cases, the possessive for instance. I am beginning to hear "I's" for the possessive when someone has the "and" which seems to cause so much confusion. "John and I's trip was a success." Think I'm kidding? Hang on to your butt and give a listen. It's coming to a TV screen and a conversation near you. I promise. How much farther can we slide down the hill of absurd speech before communication becomes impossible? Much attempted communication on social media already fails. It is as if the writer is composing in a foreign language. The words are English but I don't know what they are trying to say. I would give you some examples, but I'm afraid some of my acquaintances will read their posts and be terrible offended, but no joke, I see Facebook posts everyday that are totally unintelligible to me.

I have a proposal, a modest one. Until I say otherwise, I decree that no one in Amurica can write, speak, or think anything until I am appointed Language Czar of the United States. Then, when I get everyone reeducated, I will allow the country once more moving forward to begin the slow downward spiral into nonsense. Pass the word, don't say anything ever again until you hear from me.