More on Language

I have been noticing over the last week or two how people on radio and television are using these nonsense nouveau words in their every day speech:

• amazing
• passion
• about

It has got to the pitch where I am making a mental note of how early in the day it is when the first of these linguistic strangulations occurs.

Usually it is the mangling of the preposition about that gets in first: everything is about these days, not only the grossly offensive,

it's about rain, it's about clouds, it's about weather

but reporters and ordinary people use about when another preposition is far more appropriate.

Amazing is usually number two in the list and has normally been uttered by someone well before 7:30 am.

Passion is being very heavily used in the context of a competition and the one I tend to mention most is a cookery competition but I have seen trailers for those so called talent shows in which someone will regale us with their passion for their warbling talent. This week I watched a couple of the BBC's Masterchef: the professionals programme and not only have I been horrified at what supposedly professional chefs are happy to cook but every single one of them felt the need to tell us that they were passionate about food. I beg to differ and if I am wrong, they would not be such inept cooks.

However, yesterday, passion got in first, before amazing; and that was as late as 9:00 am. How about that?

By the way, if you are wont to say something is amazing, I urge you to take a look at the definition of the word. The fact that Anne Battenberg's daughter used the word amazing about 3 or 4 times in a sentence when she "won" the BBC Sports "Personality" of the year award the other year should not be taken as a signal that we can all do the same.

DW