Sometimes one feels privileged to have been witness to the first murmurings of a change in the use of language; at others, one feels tears squeezing through one’s lids at the realisation that a metaphor is seriously ill. Of course, it could just be the odd malapropism to which even seasoned journalists fall victim from time to time but as with the case of “refute” – as in, Miss X totally refutes suggestions that she ate Miss Y’s Chihuahua – the wrong usage bullies its way into the language and pretty soon everyone is refuting everything else with gay abandon.
There are those, of course who say, “Why does it bother you so much? Language evolves.’ And so it does but it’s when it “devolves” into some sort of gibbering primordial bollocks that I get a little upset. It's when meaning is altered in such a significant way as to mislead.
When I read: “His hosts laid out all the stops…” in an article about the official welcome for a state dignitary, I am called to wonder what the journalist (presumably paid – although, being The Independent, with its penchant for using interns, - possibly not) believes the “stops” are that are being so carefully “laid out” in welcome. And as to what makes the laid out stops so impressive, I really don’t know.
Nor, sadly, do I know what goes through the minds of people who write, “should of”, when they mean “should have” but I have little doubt that before too long, we’ll all be doing it.
There are those, of course who say, “Why does it bother you so much? Language evolves.’ And so it does but it’s when it “devolves” into some sort of gibbering primordial bollocks that I get a little upset. It's when meaning is altered in such a significant way as to mislead.
When I read: “His hosts laid out all the stops…” in an article about the official welcome for a state dignitary, I am called to wonder what the journalist (presumably paid – although, being The Independent, with its penchant for using interns, - possibly not) believes the “stops” are that are being so carefully “laid out” in welcome. And as to what makes the laid out stops so impressive, I really don’t know.
Nor, sadly, do I know what goes through the minds of people who write, “should of”, when they mean “should have” but I have little doubt that before too long, we’ll all be doing it.
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