Sloppy English
Sir: There can be little doubt that your correspondents' complaints are thoroughly justified. Standards
in the quality press are abysmal. I don't see the quantity press but I presume things are unlikely to be better there. Only today (December 5), I noticed in the Times Levin says something is " beneficient"; Malcolm Stuart in the Guardian uses " reversal " where the word he wanted was "reverse"; and Fletcher-Cooke in The Spectator perpetrates that old abomination "the reason is because." And every day some columnist or other will write "this and that is . ." so that one wonders if the plural of the verb "to be" has been abolished by law.
But whilst agreeing that written solecisms are the worst, spoken ones are not to be condoned. I am not thinking of such things as Mr Heath's " withdrawal " or even of Roy Jenkins's "in dwead " (he lapses back "in dread" when he is too tired or forgetful to maintain the alleged impediment. It is really hilarious to see the miner's son apeing the artificial lisp of the eighteenth century beau). My gripe is about radio announcers talking about "harassment." No doubt rogue landlords do their " harass'ing " in special Harass' Tweed jackets. But my bete noire is " negociate." The BBC has a` special responsibility towards the English language and some years ago I actually got them to agree to get their announcers (they could not do anything about show-off politicians or academics) to stop this atrocity. But a few weeks later, the lady in charge of talks wrote me another letter going back on the undertaking. So that the plague spreads to the extent that I recently got a letter from a fairly literate friend using the word " iniciate," I fear the rot will not be stopped.
L. E. Weidberg 14 Templewood Avenue, London NW3
Sir: "Normalcy of acceptance" I don't much like, any more than I
like Rupert Butler's punctuation: one comma even in a short letter is mean. Yet James Brock is right, and it is time that we had a law against being drunk in charge of a pencil or its technological successor, the microphone. All writers and broadcasters, in order to remain at liberty, would have to know how to use, correctly and in moderation:
literally comprise virtual ilk anticipate -wise so-called imbalance myth proponent ironically pre-planning crisis pence viable decimate legislate
Re (as they say) the latter (i.e. the last), somebody said in a BB interview recently: "We legislate for fools and criminals. We can, we do, and we should. , W. S. Brown lie
19 Hunterhill Road, Paisley
Sir: Mr Butler (Letters, December 9) attacks Mr Brock's ugly Englisil "and tautology to boot." There was no need to put the boot in.
W..McKeoWri 47 Napier Avenue, London SW6
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