It's Only Words...

As the Bee Gees sang over 40 years ago, “It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.” Here are some word abuses that, coming as they so often do from people who are paid to write or speak, are particularly disheartening: 

Enormity
When the slave trader Batiatus (Peter Ustinov) sycophantically addresses the Roman general Crassus (Laurence Olivier) as “Your enormity” in “Spartacus,” he is accurately, if inadvertently, recognizing the excessive wickedness of Crassus. I've heard sports-talk hosts pompously and repeatedly misuse the word as a synonym for enormousness.

Disinterested

It doesn’t mean not interested. It means unbiased or impartial. An arbiter should be disinterested but not uninterested in a decision.

Roll out
A perfectly useful term to describe a football play in which the quarterback takes the snap and then runs along the line of scrimmage with the option to pass or run. Non-sports reporters now habitually write such drivel as “Acme announced plans to roll out its new gadget package.”
      No one, it seems, simply introduces a product or plan anymore. And, by the way, products and plans are out, replaced by “packages.” Which are activated, rolled out across multiple platforms, and ramped up -- whatever that means. Or maybe they have to be ramped up first in order to get them onto the platforms.

Closure

A favorite word of traffic reporters. Roads are no longer closed; they are in a state of closure. Summer resorts, by the same token, would be closured for the winter and secret meetings would be held behind closured doors.

Impacted

Wisdom teeth can be impacted; wisdom can be affected but not impacted by something.

As well

Synonymous with “also,” “too,” and “and.” Memo to sports broadcasters: Tacking on “as well” to the end of any sentence which already includes one of those synonyms does not add gravitas to your statement, only redundancy. Using more than two of the above synonyms together brings new meaning to the term “triple double.”

Fortuitous
It doesn’t mean fortunate or lucky. It means happening by chance or accident.

Activity

According to weather forecasters, we no longer get rain; instead, we get a "rain situation" or "shower activity."

Supposedly Fun Things...

With apologies to David Foster Wallace and Tina Fey, here are supposedly fun things I’ll never do again:

Go to Disney World

The Limbo

Visit Curacao

Eat tomato sauce

Attend the Ice Capades

Take a Lamaze class

Read Dr. Seuss and Stephen King

Sit on a dais

Sing in the rain

Show and tell

Kiss and tell

Be dragged to a cheerleading competition

Ski

Anything scout related

Give credence to anyone who describes something as “incredible”

Pay attention to sabermetrics

Toe the line

Eat toffee

Go to an amusement or water park

Ride a rollercoaster

Improv

Not laugh at anything labeled “iconic”

Make my own sundae

Dunk for an apple

March in a parade

Watch a parade

Read a must-read book

See a must-see movie

Go with the flow

Listen to anyone who speaks of “going forward”

Take seriously any self-help enterprise

Listen to bagpipes

Play golf

Watch golf

Not make waves

Obey exhortations to “clap” at a sporting event

Get a crew cut

Watch the NBA Dunk contest

Wear a dickey

Chest bump

Watch the Pro Bowl

Drink bottled water

Overthink something

Read or view a “feel-good” story

Watch the Grammys

High-five a fellow spectator to celebrate something neither one of us did

Pay attention to “hot button” issues

Call anyone “dawg”

Watch a Super Bowl commercial

Discuss a Super Bowl commercial

Wear a baseball cap backwards

Camp

Mail Call

My brother-in-law Rich arrived home one afternoon to discover a card stuck in his front door. It was from his mailman, advising him that an oversized package was being held for him. Rich drove into town to the post office, waited in line, and, after a few minutes, stepped up to the counter.

“I'm here to pick up  a piece of mail that could not be delivered today,” Rich said. “I had a note from my mailman saying the box was too large for my mailbox and he didn’t want to leave it unattended at my front door.”

“Do you have the card?” asked the clerk, Ed.

“No. I didn’t bring it with me. I didn’t think that was necessary,” Rich said. “The delivery was from this morning.” He told Ed his name.

“I’m not going to go back there [to the parcel room] and look through every package,” said Ed. “I need the card.”

So, Rich dutifully returned home, retrieved the card, and drove back. When he got up to the counter and found Ed occupied with another customer, Rich repeated his story to the other clerk on duty. “I was here earlier today,” he told her, “but I didn’t have the card with me.”

She took the card and retreated to the back. She returned immediately.

“It was the only package back there,” she said.

Glory Days?

In baseball, remember when…

... pitchers did not have to be "stretched out" via baby steps that involved throwing on "flat ground," throwing a "bullpen," throwing a simulated inning in batting practice to the scrubs, and being farmed out for "rehab" assignments at each of the major-league club's three upper-level minor-league affiliates before having their pitch count scrutinized like an EKG while they rebuilt arm strength?

... beat reporters responded to the banalities they were fed by club personnel with skepticism rather than with blithe acceptance of and allegiance to such nonsense? 

... beat reporters didn’t ask postgame questions that began, “How excited/happy/proud are you feeling right now?”

...Sunday double-headers were a regular part of every team's schedule?

... players didn’t point to the sky (or to the top of the dome) after touching home? 

... the rotator cuff and oblique muscle had not yet been discovered?

... no one counted pitches?

... players didn’t need a day off after a night game?

... staffs comprised 10 pitchers, including four starters who took the mound every fourth day and came out only when they lost effectiveness?

... starting pitchers not working that day’s game were used as pinch runners late in the game?

... pitchers who covered first base on a ball hit to the right side did not need time out before the next pitch to get their wind back?

... players ran hard without hurting themselves?

... umpires called balls and strikes in a timely manner and not like Hamlet pondering their existential fate?

... the manager was fatter than his players?

... players didn't have to be "shut down?"

... players were not handled like Faberge eggs?

... relief pitchers entered the game and remained until they lost effectiveness or completed the game (see Moe Drabowski in Game 1 of the 1969 World Series)?

... teams did not require eight relievers at any one time on the roster? 

... a relief pitcher could throw one inning on consecutive days without his manager nominating him for the Medal of Honor?

... a general manager did not summon an emergency reliever from the minors because his manager did not want to “deplete” his “exhausted” bullpen that had pitched four innings in the previous night’s game?

... a player knew how to bunt without needing an incentive clause in his contract?

... baseball announcers were not paid by the word and did not regard themselves as part of the entertainment?

... the telecast did not incude replays of foul balls?

... no one cared about pitch-by-pitch replays? What! No one cares about that even now?

Sunday Punch

If you drank a shot every time Michael Kay, during Yankee telecasts, says “and…as well,” you could be incoherent by the ninth inning. But his colleague Kim Jones, in her in-game Yankees’ report for the YES network on Saturday, hit a rare triple redundancy when she used “and,” “also,” and “as well” in the same sentence. She could have touched ‘em all if only she had included “too” in that sentence.  

Likewise, language eluded the Journal News’s Yankees beat reporter, who wrote this on Friday night: “Some guy ran onto the field, lost his shoes just a few feet into the outfield, then laid on the ground….”

The good-natured fan who caught Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit gave the ball to Jeter. Not long after, commemorative balls with a “DJ3K” logo were being hawked during the Yankee game for $49.99 and autographed balls for $699. That did not include shipping and handling charges, we were told. There is also—no joke—a framed dirt collage for $149.99.

Athleticism (real athleticism, not the faux fitness of baseball players) will be on display this afternoon when the U.S. women’s soccer team plays Japan for the World Cup. Amazingly, not one strained oblique, hamstring, quad, or calf after hours of strenuous running, stopping, twisting, and physical contact.

Speaking of athleticism, Seattle Seahawks receiver Golden Tate took issue via Twitter with the inclusion of a Nascar driver among the ESPY nominees for Best Male Athlete: “Jimmy johnson up for best athlete???? Um nooo .. Driving a car does not show athleticism.” I don’t know. Plenty of people in my neighborhood drive just as fast around town with just one hand while talking or texting on their cell phones and reprimanding their toddlers in the back seat. No word on how Tate feels about the athleticism of golfers, bowlers, and Yankee pitchers not named Rivera.

Speaking of Twitter, do you refer to people who use Twitter as “twits?” It seems appropriate given the volume of trivial information and opinions they disseminate.