Dear Readers,
It was so much fun writing about bad vocabulary in the May 2013 post that I thought I'd write again this month. I hope you will be as amazed as I am at which words people use.
I have divided these words into two categories: vocabulary and grammatical. Let's begin with VOCABULARY. Read on . . .
Example: In the episode "No Son on the Horizon" of the TV show "Scandal," Chief of Staff Cyrus Beene asks the head of a clandestine organization to do a nefarious act. He cautions, "I expect you to wisen up." *The Chief of Staff should know to say, "wise up" instead.
Example: On the reality show "Property Virgins," real estate expert Egypt Sherrod is showing a newly constructed house to prospective buyer Tania. As they are viewing the model home, Egypt tells Tania, "You can decide how many upgrades you want or how many you don't want. Budgetarily, that may make the difference." *She may be an expert in home purchasing, but she needs a little help in the vocabulary department.
Example: A few men who are pursuing bachelorette Desiree on season 9 of "The Bachelorette" call out one of the guys who seems to be there to further his career and not for love. Bachelor Kasey says to the camera about this guy, "All he's trying to do is spin in his head how he can deny, counteraccusate and get out of this situation." *Say what??
Example: On the June 18, 2013 episode of "America's Got Talent," singing contestant Diana has a job rescuing dogs. She says, "I work with the organization called START and we go out and save dogs from euthanization." *Her organization should tell her that the correct word is "euthanasia."
Example: A caller to Larry Elder's talk show on KABC radio used the word mediocrisy. *He obviously meant to say "mediocrity."
Example: I also heard on Talk radio 790 a caller to John Phillips say, "I'm in disagreeance with you." *I disagree with you if you think this is correct.
Example: In a TV Guide interview with Lucy Liu, who plays Dr. Joan Watson to Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock Holmes on the TV show "Elementary," she is asked what made her want to play the role. She says, "I was initially very trepidatious as well, because of the history Watson and Holmes have in entertainment." *The adjective she meant to use was "fearful". Trepidation is a noun meaning fear.
Example: The online dating service Our Time likes to say, "He favorited you." *Favorite is an adjective, not a verb.
Example: Celebrity manicurist Gina Epolito was on Steve Harvey's TV talk show to talk about how trendy fingernail art has become. She tells him, "I feel like social media has broughten up nail popularity." *All of the above highlighted words were underlined by Spell Check because they do not exist. I even checked in the dictionary. Not there.
In the next few examples, these words do exist but not in the context of the sentences below. See what I mean.
Example: Someone at an Al-Anon meeting said, "My father was a periodical drinker." * The word periodical refers to regularly issued reading material. I believe the correct expression would be "periodic drinker" but maybe she meant that he only drinks while reading a magazine. Hmmm.
Example: On "America's Got Talent," judge Howard Stern tells country singer Marty Brown, "The way you quieted this room down, you couldn't hear a pin drop." *If the room was that quiet, wouldn't you be able to hear the pin drop?
Example: Author Stuart Woods wrote Unintended Consequences pretty well except for this blunder. His protagonist Stone Barrington, a lawyer, may be doing business with a man he just met. He says to his friend, "Tell me the worst thing you've ever heard about him." She replies, "The worst? I haven't heard anything worst." *Either Mr. Woods didn't check his words or he is creating a sidekick who is not all that reliable. Wouldn't you agree?
Example: There is a segment on Steve Harvey's TV talk show entitled "Is it a deal-breaker?" During this episode, he says to one woman who is asking for his advice, "If I were delving out this advice . . ."
*I'm sure he meant to use the expression "doling out advice." Or am I delving into an unknown area?
Example: On another episode of "The Steve Harvey Show," Steve is talking to guest Sergeant Briggs of the San Francisco Highway Patrol who has saved over 200 people from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Sgt. Briggs explains that he tries to instill hope in these people. Steve says, "I would imagine that's a big part of it, hope, because it's when you lose hopelessness that you're faced with a moment like that." *It's not hopelessness that you lose, it's "hope." This is just hopeless.
Example: This was also heard on Steve Harvey's talk show. Guest Dr. Travis Stork was talking about how to stay healthy during winter but cautions against too much anti-bacterial sanitizers. He says, "You got to be careful. You don't want to be overly cleanly so that your body is never exposed to anything . . ." *OMG. Not only did Dr. Stork use the adverb instead of the adjective (clean) but he pronounced it like the shorter version of the word cleanliness. He's a doctor! He should know better.
Example: Also on "The Bachelorette: Season 9," bachelorette Desiree explains to host Chris Harrison why Bryden decided to leave the show. "He just doesn't feel that the connection is going to be strong enough to withhold what he needs in a relationship." *Did you figure out that the word she meant to say was "uphold?"
Example: This time, realtor Egypt Sherrod from "Property Virgins" is working with a young couple who plan to buy a house in Georgia. When their low-ball offer is rejected, they want to counter offer. Egypt says, "If you come back with something that's more palpable, he [the owner] might be willing to play ball." *Palpable means readily or plainly seen or heard, obvious or evident. I believe the word she meant to use was "palatable," which means pleasing to the mind or feelings.
Example: Mom Frankie Heck on the TV show "The Middle" is arrested for failure to return library materials. At the police station, she asks the officer, "Are you kidding? You're seriously arresting me for overdue library books?" He answers, "That's what happens when you ignore three letters and two summons." Frankie says, "Look, we must not have realized it was an official summons."
*The singular of that word is summons and the plural is summonses. How odd that the writers have the police officer using the wrong form of the word but Frankie uses the correct one.
By far, this is my favorite example: In a profile of a widower on OK Cupid, he writes that his late wife described him as her "knight and shinny armor." *Shinny is a verb, as in " to shinny up a tree." I doubt that's what his wife meant.
In this next section, I'm going to mention words that although are correct in their usage, another word would have been better in its place.
Example: During KCRW 89.9 radio station's membership drive, the female on-air personality offers a free gift to the next "donators." She even asked aloud, "Donators?" as if she weren't sure that was the right word. It actually is correct, but the better, more common word would be "donors."
Example: On an episode of "Dog Whisperer," the owner of a Chihuahua says, "I didn't realize I was sort of passing on my anxiousness on to her." *Yes, that's a word, but why not use "anxiety?"
And the fact that she uses the preposition "on" twice in that sentence makes me anxious.
Example: A scene from the TV show "Scandal" takes place at a funeral in Arlington Cemetery. In the background, song lyrics play and I heard, " Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness."
*Yes, that is an actual word and yes, song lyrics are supposed to rhyme, but the better word would be "hunger." Ever heard of The Hungriness Games?
Example: Patti Stanger, the Millionaire Matchmaker, has set up millionaire Joe with a beautiful law student named Natalie. On their date, Joe explains that he actually comes from humble beginnings. Natalie remarks, "I really like that you want to stay true to yourself and you like to keep your humbleness." *I guess law students like to use big words, but she would sound just as smart if she had said "humility."
Example: Steve Harvey had guest therapist Dr. John Duffy on the show talking about parenting through the years. Steve asks him, "How should parents handle kids when they start to rebel?" Duffy responds, "My advice about rebelliousness is to handle it before the first big act of rebelliousness."
*Twice in one sentence! He could have saved time by using "rebellion" instead.
Example: In John Grisham's novel The Last Juror, the narrator Will Traynor, new owner and publisher of the local Ford County newspaper describes a defense attorney's ranting. "He had lost his attempt to get bail, so he had to impress them with his zealousness." *As a writer, I understand his zeal in presenting the best word to describe his characters.
Example: A caller to Geraldo Rivera on KABC Talk radio said, "You're a bit of a racialist." *The common term is "racist."
In the next two examples, the longer word is used when the shorter word would be just as good.
1. On a "60 Minutes" segment about Dick Cheney's heart, the former Vice President says, "You wake up every morning with a smile on your face because you've got a new day you never expected to have, and there's a sense of wonderment, nothing short of magical."
2. Lori Greiner, shark on "Shark Tank" questions why the entrepreneurs are spending so much money to make their product. She says, "So to make the decision and spend that much money when you're a brand new business is a wonderment to me." *I wonder if they know the short form.
In this last example, it's actually the wrong country being used. On a very old (1993) episode of "Mad About You," wife Jamie is in between jobs and doesn't know what to do with her free time. She's driving her husband Paul so crazy that one night he tells her he has to work late so that he can avoid her. She laments, "It's Mexican night. I was going to make gazpacho." *Gazpacho, per Wikipedia, is a tomato-based vegetable soup served cold . . . originating in the southern Spanish region of Andalucía. The writers should have done their research but Wikipedia did not exist back then. Encyclopedia, anyone?
Now I will focus on a few examples from the GRAMMATICAL category.
Example: I read an article in "People" magazine, dated April 21, 2014 on the two Duggar family daughters who are in love. "In an age of hookups and sexting, these couples take it slow." *I wish the writer had known to use the adverb "slowly" here.
Example: The 2009 movie "Weather Girl" has the titular character Sylvia moving in with her brother Walt after losing her job. She has begun a secret physical relationship with his best friend Byron. When Walt comes home one night and catches them in the act, the three of them have a sit-down where Walt complains, "That was my bed you were fornicating on and that was my friend with which you were fornicating." *I guess he was so upset about all the fornicating that he didn't realize that it was a person with whom she was fornicating.
Example: On the "America's Got Talent" results show of September 2013, the all-girl gymnastics troupe called Innovative Force is not voted to continue. Host Nick Cannon asks the spokesperson,
"How was your time on the show?" She responds, "We're so blessed to have been able to been on it."
*I am blessed to be able to recognize that she used the wrong verb form.
As I come to the end of my post, I would like to leave my readers with a couple of examples of good vocabulary.
Example: One guest on Steve Harvey's talk show wants Steve's help in finding a smooth way to introduce her young children to the new man in her life. She explains, "This will be the first time my children have met someone outside of their dad so there's a little trepidation there." *Yes, she used the synonym for "fear" correctly.
Example: Raymond "Red" Reddington, who helps the FBI find criminals on TV's "The Black List," meets with agent Donald Ressler. Reddington explains to him, "I reached out to you, Donald. And it wasn't to revisit all the times I eluded your littler coterie of door-kickers who pursued me with such fervor and zeal." *These writers give Reddington such colorful language and they do it with such zeal.
Example: In the episode "The Friendship Algorithm" of "The Big Bang Theory," Dr. Sheldon Cooper needs to use a new computer owned by antagonistic colleague Barry Kripke. Sheldon's friend Leonard explains that Kripke only allows his friends to use it. Sheldon says, "Well then, the solution is simple. I shall befriend him." *In this age of Facebook and "friending" everyone on earth, it's a wonder to me that some writers still use good English. Hurray!
Well, Readers, I hope that my indulgence in sharing with you these confounding mistakes will enlighten you a little and perhaps brighten your day.
