A commercial that interrupted the TV program I was watching featured a woman’s undergarment — specifically, a brassiere (commonly known as a “bra”). As the actor showed the audience the benefits of the garment, she used the term “comfortability.” I immediately dove for my big, fat Oxford English Dictionary and confirmed what I thought: “comfterbility,” (which is how the actor pronounced it) is not a standard English word.
I hear so many instances of inaccurate uses of the English language, and each time I do, I have a flashback to my young life with my abusive father. My father demanded that his children, with whom he had a sporadic and chaotic relationship, use “proper English,” always. That requirement stuck with me and guided all my academic pursuits, including declaring English as my major at Indiana University Southeast. When I was conscripted into the service of the Weekly View (“An Accidental Columnist”), it was based on a series of posts that I had put on a social media site, posts that my friend Paula Nicewanger thought were submissions for publication. Once I learned that I was going to be published in this newspaper, my attention to the details of the language I used became meticulous. But some of the commercials that I see on TV don’t have that same commitment.
A law firm that hawks its wares through the airwaves features testimonials by satisfied clients. Two of these commercials have me grinding my back teeth to powder. In one, a woman sitting in a wheelchair testifies that her accident “fractured (her) spinal cord.” My thought was that a “cord” could be cut, shredded, and wrapped, but only a frozen rope can be shattered. Just to be certain, I researched “spinal cord,” and confirmed that it is a “bundle of nerves” that are enclosed within the bones, muscles, and tendons of the spinal column. We can fracture our spinal column, but not our spinal cord. Another testimonial from a client of that law firm is apparently trying to say that a different firm refused to help him. The man declares, “They declined me!” Wrong usage, people.
Another tooth-grinder is a commercial that declares that some remedy will help you “Regain your life back.” The definition of “regain” is to “obtain possession or use of … after losing it.” You do not “regain back.” And what do I do with “a full 360 degrees?” 360 degrees is a complete circle; halfway is 180 degrees. We do not need to add “full” to 360.
I remember a lively exchange that I had with a reader who took exception to my use of “eldest” to describe my first daughter. He wrote that the usage was incorrect because I must have three daughters before the first one could be called the eldest. I broke out the “Big O”; not Indianapolis’ Crispus Attucks High School alumnus Oscar Robertson, but the aforementioned Oxford English Dictionary, which buffered my contention that eldest meant oldest of any number greater than one. I recognize that “greater than one” need not be said. But I did so, anyway, in much the same way that a TV commercial touts a program that is “back for the first time.”
Now, let us talk about “y’all,” which is a contraction of the words “you all,” and which used to be a Southern states’ expression, but is now all over the country. Several of the judges on the TV shows that I watch routinely use the word “y’all.” The rap music musician DMX summarizes how I feel about the word:
“Y’all gon’ make me lose my mind…”
cjon3acd@att.net