Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Wanted for crimes against language

In the course of just a single day, there are countless times when I read or hear something that makes me want to scream.

Well, I say countless. Today there were maybe three. (No. There were a lot more than three, but memory is mercifully short.)

Would the perpetrators of the following please hit themselves very hard over the head and get a job that doesn't involve communication:

"How can their leverage at different parts of the value chain be increased?"
(Good question.)

"Click here to continue the experience in Flash."
(Dude, it's a website. It is not an "experience". I'm just looking for your phone number. ...Actually, I think we may have a deeper problem here than just the language, but never mind.)

And most annoying of all, if only because I hear it so damn often, and somebody has clearly written this bloody sentence out as a script and none of the idiotic guards thinks to maybe paraphrase and spare themselves the embarrassment of saying something WITHOUT MEANING, the following two snippets from the South West Trains announcements...
"...should you require any help or assistance..."
and
"...at the next station or stop..."

Ooh, bonus round, from a recently watched ep of Grand Designs*: "The house has so much personality and character."

Words, words, words. Such lovely things. So abused.

_____
* Blame Beloved.

3 comments:

greg said...

You can tell your Beloved that: Grand Designs? I get it too.

Bill C said...

"No Tinkerbell-type fairies were harmed in the execution of this scripted speech."

I'd pay a dollar to hear *that* over a PA system.

Anonymous said...

"the next station or stop" is actually a fair announcement, given that it's not entirely unheard of for trains to stop in the middle of nowhere for unspecified periods of time. For the rest, euthanasia...
Adamastor