Dear Readers,
This month I will focus on more "Just Plain Wrong" (see blog March 2014). Each time I see an egregious error, I am so shocked that I need to include it in this blog.
Example: This came from a newspaper article about a Montebello mayor. The headline read, "Mayor says she will remain in office" and is followed by "Cortez thanks supporters one week after husband's arrest on drug charges." Here are the egregious errors ...
The mayor is quoted, "I'd like to thank everyone for the tremendous support myself and my family has been receiving." ... "I will continue to do my job to the best of its ability." *What the f*#@?
Who elected this woman to such a high office when she can't speak properly?
Example: The book Room 1219, written by Greg Merritt, tells the true story of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle who was accused of killing his paramour Virginia Rappe in 1921. There is eventually a trial and on one page the author refers to "opening arguments" and on another page he uses "closing statements." *I checked on the United States Courts website (why didn't he?). It is actually the opposite - opening statements and closing arguments. I hear this all the time on the TV law-and-order-type shows.
Example: Donna Tartt, in her novel "The Goldfinch," relates a short conversation between Goldie, a doorman, and Theo, a resident in a NYC apartment. Theo says, "Hey, thanks for looking out for me..." "No problemo," said Goldie. Later on, Goldie talks about his home: "I'm a tropical bird, you know? I can't wait to go home to Puerto Rico." *If he hails from Puerto Rico, where Spanish is the main language, why would he use "problemo" instead of the correct Spanish word "problema?"
Example: On TV's "CBS Sunday Morning," there was a segment about September's fall TV lineup.
Correspondent Tracy Smith was talking to TV critic Alan Sepinwall who said, "Sunday night is the best and the worst because on the one hand, you have the very best shows in all of television, many of whom the very best shows in the history of television all airing on Sunday." *What the f*#@? Besides his very long run-on sentence, he referred to TV shows, as "whom." The correct pronoun would be "which." Also, he says the best and worst yet never mentions the worst. Lastly, he says, "...on the one hand..." but never adds "on the other hand." This is a critic and he gets paid for his opinions??? I wouldn't pay him one cent.
Example: The premise of the now defunct TV show "Forever" was that Dr. Henry Morgan, English doctor and sleuth, has a strange affliction that renders him immortal, never aging beyond 36 years old. He now lives in New York and helps detectives solve murders. His story reveals that in the 1940's, he and his wife adopted an orphaned baby from a German concentration camp. They named him Abraham. Today, Abe is 70 years old but his "father" Henry remains 36 and together they own an antique store (besides Henry's vocation as medical examiner with the NYPD). Here is the inconsistency that bothered me: Abe was raised in New York by English parents who were not of the Jewish faith, yet Abe espouses these Yiddish expressions: "Meh!" "Fekakteh..." "Mensch." *From what I know about language, a child learns to speak from his parents, and although the accent may be more localized, expressions from another culture would not generally be adopted and used with such ease as Abe used them. I assume that because the actor, Judd Hirsch, who plays Abe, is an older Jewish man, that the writers inadvertently wrote his lines to reflect this. In my opinion, not Kosher at all.
Last example: TV host Cat Deeley was interviewed in the TV Guide magazine. She talked about being called by "American Idol" to possibly replace host Ryan Seacrest because he was sick. She says, "At the very last minute, they're like, 'He's going on.' No problem, that's totally cool. And then they went, 'But we still want you to sit here behind the stage just in case he takes a turn for the worse.'" *Over the years, I have heard new words and expressions creep into our vernacular, and this shows clearly how such unlikely synonyms for the word "said" have entered the English language.
Well, dear Readers, I hope you are as aghast as I am at some of these wacky errors. They are actually fun to spot and write about. I hope you enjoyed reading the posting.