Friday, June 13, 2008

Language, my nemesis

Most recent assault on my ears: a story on NPR about a power outage in
WDC that left thousands without power and caused huge traffic snafus.
Recently though "customers have been restored." I don't think that is
what he meant.

On yesterday, a retiring prof was honored on campus. A colleague made
light of the apparently ever ongoing efforts of the retiree to squash
the use of irregardless. I was surrounded by three teachers of English
and I commented that the speaker had misspelled irregardless on the
power point slide as iregardless. All three chorused "it is not a
word." Well, yes, I know that. What kept me up late last night was the
fact that I believe a non-word has an appropriate spelling. "It is not
a word but here is its correct form." Seems to be vaguely paradoxical.

Sent from my iPhone

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