First to be shot at dawn should be broadcast "journalists," advertising copywriters, contract lawyers, cybergurus, rap and rock singers and vocabulary-challenged athletes and other celebrities.
Together, those pathetic illiterates have done more to mangle America's mother tongue than the millions of migrants struggling to master its complex rules. Ironically, those immigrants may eventually become the only skilled English speakers in America.
Who gave Americans licenses to invent their own words, spellings, punctuations, pronunciations and sentence structures? And why do many of us rush to repeat their newly coined "in" abortions?
Some of the blame points to "niche needs"--that is, the desire to be different, unique, exclusive. But most of the blame is sheer laziness--the use, for example, of stuff to describe anything and everything.
Stuff stuff and other language crutches. (20 FEBRUARY 2000).
