Now it we could only get TV news readers to stop adding -ing to the end of every verb! What morons. It's no wonder kids today are illiterate.
Bob
On Friday, September 18, 2020, 11:14:10 AM EDT, Tim Eck via pbs <pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote:
Jane said:
"The second new word I learned today is something that we on the Pacific
coast are all yearning for at this moment: "petrichor," the fragrance of
sun-baked earth when it is first struck by rain."
I had been familiar with "petrichor" already, though back east we mostly
don't get much sunbaked earth and have to rely on sunbaked boulders since
they bake a lot quicker.
A word that I recently enjoyed learning was "mondegreen", named for Lady
Mondegreen, much regaled in Scottish ballads.
But as uplifting as it is to learn a new word, I find it increasingly
frustrating to hear perfectly good old words being confounded and macerated
on the airwaves. I am begrudgingly accepting that "death spiral" isn't
just for airplanes anymore, as "spiralling out of control" becomes a
mandatory phrase in every broadcast and that "epicenters" aren't just for
earthquakes anymore. (By the way, isn't the west coast about due? Maybe a
"fire sharknado"?)
But lately as so many situations are being "exacerbated", I keep hearing
PBS commentators confounding it with "exasperated" and have begun shouting
at my radio on a regular basis. As a child I revered Walter Cronkite and
other well educated and well spoken commentators and personalities like
Dorothy Parker and Bennett Cerf. But just the other day I heard someone on
public radio say "exasturbated" for "exacerbated". Every time I start to
visualize that as a portmanteau, I lose my train of thought.
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