The media used to set a certain standard for the correct use of English – but not today.
Have you noticed that people no longer utter the word ‘Yes’ for the affirmative, but will answer ‘absolutely’, and if you wish to emphasis ‘Yes’ it has to be ‘Absolutely Correct’, or ‘you are absolutely correct’ if the speaker wishes to compliment someone. Of course some go further and state ‘You are one hundred per cent correct’ as if the speaker was in an doubt that they were correct.
No longer is anything ‘unique’ – anything unique in today’s world is ‘very unique’. They fail to understand that if something is unique – it is unique – a little like being a ‘little bit’ pregnant or a ‘little bit’ dead – you are either pregnant or you are dead or unique.
Why is it that nobody is ill in hospital any more, because they are ‘fighting for their life’. It doesn’t seem to matter if a sportsman is in hospital for a sprained wrist or on death’s door, they are are gallantly ‘fighting for their life’.
As for cricket players who go to do ‘battle’ against all odds – I have a mental picture of two adults, dressed in the traditional white cricket gear, with shin pads of course, attacking each other with a cricket bat. I know I am behind the times, because few play bat and ball today dressed in white, but in various coloured shirts denoting their team.
The promoters assume that the supporters are unable to work out that the guy with the bat is against everyone else on the field, including the fellow with the ball, and his only friend on the field is the other guy with a bat. When I grew up all cricket players wore white, because we were bright enough to know the difference between the teams. Perhaps, like everything else in today’s world, life is dumbed down so that people don’t have to think for themselves, or have any responsibility for make a mistake – coloured cricket shirts must help a lot.
I bet you haven’t realised how many heroes we have in sport. According to the media everyone playing sport is a hero for being paid a great deal of money for something that used to be done for pleasure. Of course being a sporting hero allows you to make an ass of yourself with alcohol or drugs and then to apologise to your fans for your ‘mistake’. The mistake being that you were caught, because if you hadn’t been caught you were not making a mistake . . . .
To finish for the day (stop cheering!) – when will we stop saying ‘he paid no tax’, or ‘companies paid no tax’ or ‘he spoke no English’ – how can anyone pay / or do something that doesn’t exist ?
silverfox175 