Weekend sports programs brought this one to the fore, but it's also become much too common on journalism-based shows like "Today." Matt Lauer, are you listening?
I forget the exact name for it, but I'll call it noun-pronoun redundancy: "Eli Manning, he's having a rough day," or "Neil Young, he's got a new album." That's how it's most commonly said. For a long time we heard "Neil Young. He's got a new album," and lived with it, rationalizing that a subject without a verb (sometimes trumpeted in a way that would require an exclamation point if rendered in print) was akin to a "label" headline. But now broadcasters are running it all together, and it's bad grammar. Once, it was a good indicator of poor education. Now, it mainly displays ignorance.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
Origin story of this blog
I'm a former broadcaster who has gotten fed up with the bad grammar and other misuse of language on television and radio. Finally, this morning, as I worked on another blog, I realized that blogging my frustrations would not only vent them, but give others the opportunity to do so. The first post involved an expert guest, not a broadcaster, but I consider such guests fair game. They should know how to use the language, and when they misuse it, they foster more misuse, something broadcasters should watch out for; not that they should correct guests on the air, but beware of repeating the errors themselves.
Something wrong with the sense of touch? Nope
Dale Atkins, guest on "Today" 12/29/08, said: " . . . feel badly." Wrong. Right: "bad"
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