O, my unawares!

By Ridley Greene | Wed, February 15, 2012 - 12:00 AM

The reason one writes isn’t the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say. – F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist.

IT ISN’T AS RARE as we would like it to be: this lack of thinking and paucity of proper grammar, correct spelling and essential punctuation, foisted upon unsuspecting readers and viewers by the innumerable blogs – and CBCTV Classifieds.

It is bad enough experiencing this thoughtlessness, created by a new breed of lawless and cavalier communicators, being read in good voice. It is a whole new strain of trauma seeing it fixed and frozen before your every eyes on the television screen – for hours.

Extolling the virtues of a battered and bruised English language, CBCTV Classifieds, in a New Year typographical format and with aplomb, offered for our information – and observation – the following.

Hot flashes, colds, ache, blocked arteries, asthma & bronchitis breast uplift effectively corrects sagging breast. Also in stock bras, underwears, handbags, RC helicopters, toys and much more.

And, imagine all this in capital letters in a serif font – that with the narrow hooks.

Take Pearson Bowen, Tony Thompson and Sophia Cambridge away, and it seems English is really CBC’s second language, or third. But CBC is not the only culprit, although it continues to be a conduit for the plundered and savaged wordage of the official tongue of our land by too many of our Members of Parliament.

Actually CBC joins a brigade of ubiquitous media word abusers, who perpetrate such violence against the English language that it cries out for a safe house. Abuse against fellow man pales in comparison.

Simply, our media managers cannot continue to let loose on the nation these troops of garrulous and reading-impaired radio announcers, who fancy themselves as the light of the world, when in fact they are the bane of our lives.

Nor must our media managers pay such scant respect to the quality and integrity of public announcements and notices, that the presentation and attempt at communication by these advertorial devices are less than acceptable in civilized society. That these offerings are paid for demands a higher standard the more.

There was a time in radio and TV-land when the vast majority employed spoke pristine English, and the others tried their damnest to. We gloried in the likes of Marvo Manning, Monica Forde, Linda Walrond, Jeannette Layne-Clark, Olga Lopes-Seale, Alfred Pragnell, Frank Pardo, Mike Rudder, Tony Cumming, Hugh Riley and Carl Scott.

Nowadays, there is the continued glorifying of the authors of “tell he”, “looka”, “guh long”, and “a tousand tings”.

We couldn’t get any barer than CBCTV’s Empty Cupboard a Thursday night ago, I think, when Chef David queried of co-host Chantal: “You wahn truh way dah?” and advised that of the potatoes, eggs and some other ingredient: “We cahn mek a tree-course meel.”

Of course, co-host Chantal, with measured monotony for effect, was far worse. All on national television.

And then we have a Minister of Education advocating that we teach English as a foreign language – a second language – in schools! Why not a first? Because we have given such licence to language assassins that their kill is, firstly, unimaginable, and, secondly, irreversible.

Our educators must convince our young that proficiency in standard English can only expand their minds and set them their place in this international sphere, and our educators must set themselves the example too, without which we shall surely all perish.

BLESSED BE SANDY! Porky Pig did come to Deacons after all. No, he didn’t fly. He lay prostrate on the plate, having made the ultimate sacrifice.

He had presented himself – with the compliments of a beaming Sandy – for the first time last Friday, seasoned in oils and herbs and tenderized by delicate and balanced baking. His aromatic form was most succulent, delectable!

Sandy gave us a new definition for gustatory. And Stephen, Winston, Frank and Mark put a whole new meaning to licking one’s chops. Proper!