"He had recently underwent ..."

Oh, my poor ears!

If this were an isolated instance, I wouldn't write about it, but it's not - it's all too common, I'm afraid, including such oddities as "I should have went ..."

What are these people doing in school?!?

Better question: What do they teach them in school? Are the teachers themselves so ignorant? Are there no standards when writing essays? Are classes in grammar and vocabulary so deficient?

This is my soap box: Proper conjugations should be taught in grammar school, and by the time someone reaches the professional ranks, such "rank" errors ought to be gone for good!

The above two examples were spoken by professionals.

"I think that sucks!"

Folks, that expression has sadly become part of our everyday lexicon.  It is ubiquitous in its use. Even otherwise professional people use it with impunity.  It's all over the internet, in all types of media, representing the gamut of articles.

And it's repulsive.

As with other objectionable figures of speech, expletives of various kinds, or casual idioms, "that sucks" is neither elegant, professional, nor even acceptable in any sense of the word.  Unless you are discussing one of the instincts of the newborn, that word should be eliminated from your vernacular.  If you are not discussing the method of drinking through a straw, eliminate that word from your vocabulary.  The only other use for it might be if you are part of a group of school children gathered in the locker rooms debating the merits of a bad grade.

With a tip of the hat to Seth Stevenson, who eloquently wrote about the passe nature of the word in his article, Suck It Up, I must state that I still find the word offensive, abrasive, and downright inappropriate.  I don't care that it's been part of everyday language for a long time; I don't care that no one associates fellatio with the word anymore; I don't care that most people don't even know what it means, or that it's a "concise, emphatic" way to say something is no good. I still find it objectionable.

Another word has been part of the English lexicon far longer than sucks, and yet is still considered taboo in polite society.  Ah, but this does beg the question: Are we a polite society anymore? I no more enjoy hearing "fuck this place; this is fucked up" in a public place, than I do sucks. Call me old fashioned, that's okay, I don't mind.

How long a word has been in usage should not be the overriding criterion for keeping it going. Surely, we are all aware of objectionable words that have seen their time pass. The current social debate even concerns names as old as the sport they represent: the Redskins.

No, how long a word has been in existence is not an excuse to continue using it.

It is clear that Mr. Stevenson's use of the English language is masterful.  He writes flawlessly, with perfect grammar and superb vocabulary, all skills and talents dear to my heart. But his arguments are not as sentient.

The word sucks - along with his other notables mentioned in his article - are vulgar and offensive. That he claims they more efficiently express our emotions is to condemn us to a further deterioration of our language. Surely, someone as well spoken as Mr. Stevenson could find an effective way of speaking his mind without resorting to those expletives - indeed, he may well invent some.

Amenable vs amiable

"The tear is not amiable to surgical repair at this time."  Huh??? Amiable means friendly.

Methinks that person meant amenable, which means ready for, disposed to, in a condition for.

"A open wound," and "a optional stock"

This drives me crazy.  Batty!  What the heck is going on with people dropping the "n" when combining two vowels?! "All this proved to be a excellent source of information."  Ouch on the ears! These phrases were spoken by an otherwise highly-educated person! It's heard pervasively throughout the English lexicon nowadays.  It's AWFUL.  It's not cool!

"I had a accident"

It's not just Millenials who commit these unconscionable gaffes in popular speech - it's also doctors and lawyers, and even some journalists on national media.  It's atrocious.  From spelling errors, no doubt compounded by the shorthand required in texting, or Hollywood that has seen fit to turn all pronouns indiscriminately to the subjective, "I" ("between you and I," or "she gave you and I a nice gift," etc., etc., ad nauseum), now there is the dropping of the liaison "n" when two vowels are conjoined, as in "I had an accident."  It's heard everywhere; it's even written everywhere. Right there on Google, third in line, is "How do you find a interest rate." The English language is a precious gift.  To adulterate it seems a terrible practice, a sad practice, and does not bode well for Millenials, many of whom are mourning the sad economy or the dearth of jobs.  I wonder if jobs - or the economy, for that matter - would suffer as much if they focused as much on developing their brains as they do on the latest thumb-damaging gadgets.

One's brain and ability to think and extrapolate are some of the greatest gifts any of us will ever have - along with our health.  To suppress it; to refuse to educate it; to insist on drifting through life staring down on tiny screens and encouraging carpal tunnel syndrome is regrettable.  Somehow that word just doesn't do justice to the passion I feel.

Another one just came across the wires: "He is a 84-year-old man." Hurts the ears!

Body Language

In a recent TV program, Secrets of Body Language, on the esteemed History Channel, the narrator spoke of the when describing Yasser Arafat's obsequious back-patting and attempts to defer to his colleague as a sign of "apparent geniality."

"We pay so much attention to the words people speak; but remember, 93% of human communication is delivered through body language."

I posted that quote (of an experiment conducted by Albert Mehrabian in the 1960s and widely misinterpreted), onto LinkedIn, and started a firestorm, with people coming out of the woodwork eschewing that quote as outdated, a "myth," long ago refuted by other so-called experts.  The problem is not the quote, so much as the ongoing misinterpretation of the masses, even experts. Wikipedia has a great write-up about Mehrabian and the experiment in question that is worth reading.

In short, the experiment attempted to examine the elements of communication, including verbal, as well as non-verbal elements.  Mehrabian concluded that there are three basic elements in all face-to-face communication:

• Words
• Tone of voice
• Nonverbal behavior, such as facial expressions.

Note, importantly, that the experiment is very narrow in focus; moreover, the experiment was for face-to-face communication.  Surely, not all communication is conducted face to face, which adds another dimension to examining communication in general.  Nonetheless, in every respect, these experiments in communication assume human communication - we all know, of course, that communication occurs between and among species, but that's another story.

Elusive v Illusive

Elusive and illusive sound very much alike in spoken speech.  As with most sound-alikes, they mean quite different things.  Both are adjectives.

Elusive (adj.) describes something that is fleeting, hard to pin down, vague, mysterious, as an elusive feeling one might have, obscure.  The root verb is elude, which means to escape, disappear or evade.  Ex. The interpretation of the dream was elusive. 

Illusive (adj.) relates to the word illusion, fantasy, something that is not real, magic, false and unreal. Although illusive is correct, a better use of this adjective would be illusory. No matter: It still means deceptive, as an illusion.  Ex. The so-called shortage and hence value of diamonds is an illusory phenomenon, created by those companies that wish to maintain their monopoly on the supply.