" There is three ways things can improve…"
"What does these three men think?"
"If there is advertisements like that….."
"He hasn’t had to answer for these questions"
I wanted to test over a ten minute period the extent of the misuse of the English language on an average news program (a news program because you expect sloppy language on other broadcasts with perhaps less educated people). The above appalling examples of misuse were picked up during only ten minutes of the McNeill/Lehrer news program on WETA last night, Monday 26th November. The speakers were all "well-educated" men, experts in their fields, and one was an experienced broadcaster, who should know better.
Shame on them! Epicurus , were he here today, would point to a decline in the culture, from the top. I quote Wittgenstein:
"The limits of our language are the limits of our experience."
You cannot have a great country if its leaders you cannot speak its language!
They think it doesn’t matter. They think it resonates with the guys with the Transit vans. What it does to me is frighten me. We can send huge armies all over the world but cannot speak our own language. Were there a God I hope he might help us!
I understand that of the five signs of a dying empire, the corruption of language is one of them.
The other four are: the breakdown of Law and Order; the breakdown of family; an unstable economy and the dying of faith.
(p.s. it takes just as much faith to be an athiest!)
Well, if these are the five signs then I think we have a problem.
We do indeed