One of my favorite editors, the "rampacious" (a word created just for crazy, headstrong red-heads obsessed with pirates, who I want to be) Carol Chambers reprimanded me, only once, that's all it took, for my use of the term "over" where "more than" was more appropriately applicable. "Over" she said, implies a physical designation, not a quantity. Well, maybe she said it more like, "'Things' go over other things, not quantities. You're not trying to say that the amount is physically hovering in space above something are ya, kiddo?"
I kept mindful of the advice, using the accurate designation when called for, while noticing increasing misuse of "over" all over the place. yes that was intended. Billboards, wall posters, online advertisements, promotional emails, letters from friends who studied the language, reputable news websites, and print pieces, anywhere and everywhere - "Over" has weaseled its way into common usage as a quantitative descriptor. Wrong sir, I say.
When I first moved to the city, a few months ago, I joked about it with friends. It was my little verbal pet-peeve. Everyone has one. I get rousted about when I feel the need to correct someone. But, seriously, I feel that pull "more than" twice to 10-times-a-day. How is it that this many people are just mucking up the works in their speech? I mean, I know I can't expect everyone to be this cognizant of the ins and outs of grammar, just as a doctor can't assume that the common man knows the nomenclature for all valves of the heart. But, when I see paid professional copy writers, journalists, and the like go the easy way out, and in high-up companies...
Then let us consider the current hiring situation in the country / at least on my peninsula, where obtaining a job is so difficult (not "hard") within one's field. It gets a bit insulting that these doofs are those that made the cut. Do they talk about "these ones" and "those ones" (redundant) rather than just "these" or "those"? Do they constantly use gerunds, slapping "-ing" on the end of words they can't think or reasonable alternatives for? Do they still rely on "to be" because they simply can't think of any of friggin' verb to fill the space, and.... Ahhha hahha. Ok I just geeked out. Sorry that won't happen again, for awhile.
Anyways, piece said. I know language changes and grows, it's a living thing, understood. But I'm bout to start carrying round a red pen and correcting e'rybody, cuz they dumb, they really, really dumb.
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Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
