The Book of George

“If I Were in Charge of the Networks” – Part I

I’m tired of television announcers, hosts, newscasters, and commentators, nibbling away at the English language, making obvious and ignorant mistakes.

If I were in charge of America’s broadcast stations and networks, I would gather all the people whose jobs include speaking to the public, and I would not let them out of the room until they had absorbed the following suggestions.

And I’m aware that media personalities are not selected on the basis of intelligence.  I know that, and I try to make allowances for it.  Believe me, I really try.  But still…

There are some liberties taken with speech that I think require intervention, if only for my own sake.  I won’t feel right if this chance goes by, and I keep my silence.

The English word forte, meaning “specialty” or “strong point,” is not pronounced “for-tay.”  Got that?  It’s pronounced “fort.”  The Italian word forte, used in music notation, is pronounced “for-tay,” and it instructs the musician to play loud: “She plays the skin flute, and her forte [fort] is playing forte [for-tay].”  Look it up.  And don’t give me that whiny shit, “For-tay is listed as the second preference.”  There’s a reason it’s second: because it’s not first!

Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence.  If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic.  It is a coincidence.  If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father’s, it will not be ironic.  It will be a coincidence.  Irony is “a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result.”  For instance:

If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident.  If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence.  But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah!  Then he is the victim of irony.

If a Kurd, after surviving a bloody battle with Saddam Hussein’s army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, and is crushed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large.

Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed after a brutal hit by Jack Tatum.  Now Darryl Stingley’s son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic.  It will be coincidental.  If Darryl Stingley’s son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic.  If he paralyzes Jack Tatum’s son that will be precisely ironic.

I’m tired of hearing prodigal being used to mean “wandering, given to running away or leaving and returning.”  The parable in the Book of Luke tells of a son who squanders his father’s money.  Prodigal means “recklessly wasteful or extravagant.”  And if you say popular usage has changed that, I say, fuck popular usage!

The phrase sour grapes does not refer to jealousy or envy.  Nor is it related to being a sore loser.  It deals with the rationalization of failure to attain a desired end.  In the original fable by Aesop, “The Fox and the Grapes,” when the fox realizes he cannot leap high enough to reach the grapes, he rationalizes that even if he had gotten them, they would probably have been sour anyway.  Rationalization.  That’s all sour grapes means.  It doesn’t deal with jealousy or sore losing.  Yea, I know, you say, “Well, many people are using it that way, so the meaning is changing.”  And I say, “Well many people are real fuckin’ stupid, too, shall we just adopt all their standards?”

Strictly speaking, celibate does not mean not having sex, it means not being married.  No wedding.  The practice of refraining from sex is called chastity or sexual abstinence.  No fucking.  Priests don’t take a vow of celibacy, they took a vow of chastity.  Sometimes referred to as the “no-nookie clause.”

And speaking of sex, the Immaculate Conception does not mean Jesus was conceived in the absence of sex.  It means Mary was conceived without Original Sin.  That’s all it has ever meant.  And according to the tabloids, Mary is apparently the only one who can make such a claim.  The Jesus thing is called virgin birth.

Proverbial is now being used to describe things that don’t appear in proverbs.  For instance, “the proverbial drop in the bucket” is incorrect because “a drop in the bucket” is not a proverb, it’s a metaphor.  You wouldn’t say, “as welcome as a turd in the proverbial punch bowl,” or “as cold as the proverbial nun’s box,” because neither refers to a proverb.  The former is a metaphor, the latter is a simile.

Momentarily means for a moment, not in a moment.  The word for “in a moment” is presently.  “I will be there presently, Dad, and then, after pausing momentarily, I will kick you in the nuts.”

No other option and no other alternative are redundant.  The words option and alternative already imply otherness.  “I had no option, Mom, I got this huge erection because there was no alternative.”  The rule is not optional; the alternative is to be wrong.

You should not use the word criteria when you mean criterion for the same reason that you should not criterion when you mean criteria.  These is my only criterions.

A light-year is a measure of distance, not time.  “It will take light years for young basketball players to catch up with the number of women Wilt Chamberlain has fucked,” is a scientific impossibility.  Probably in more ways than one.

An acronym is not just any set of initials.  It applies only to those that are pronounced as words.  MADD, DARE, NATO, and UNICEF are acronyms.  FBI, CIA, and KGB are not.  They’re just pricks.