Bob Cuddy: Readers vent over linguistic vandalism

“Oh, stop awfulizing about how awful the English language is being mangled these days,” wrote Lorraine Neville of Morro Bay.

I know Neville is joshing because she is clearly having sport with one of the chief abuses of the language these days: adding “ize” to nouns and adjectives and pretending they are verbs.

That is merely one abuse I cited in my Feb. 17 column. I focused on the mangling that language receives at the hands of bureaucrats, and I invited readers to share their angst.

You drowndized me with replies—more than 40. I can’t print them all, but here are some of them.

Some writers, like me, focused on bureaucratese (is that a word?). Shirley Bianchi, who retired from her county supervisor job last year after almost three decades in government, confessed that “negative declaration” and “statement of overriding considerations” annoyed her the whole time.

Bianchi explained what the mind-numbing phrases really mean, but space here is limited.

Kate Twisselman wrote that the faux verb “trending” sets off a reaction in her akin to biting aluminum. “I know that ‘trend’ is a noun,” she wrote. She wondered why others can’t grasp the concept. “Why? I beg of you. Why must they do this?”

William Etling also reacted badly to language abuse. “It’s enough to make one proactively conversate with a mental health mitigator.”

Pat Swindell of Paso Robles chose to explain why mutilating the language is bad in terms the mutilators can understand.

“When we promulgate our esoteric cogitations and our philosophical, psychological observations, we should beware of platitudinous ponderosities and let our extemporaneous decantings show a concisiveness.”

Nicely put, Pat. Others mentioned one or

two phrases that particularly annoy them.

For Doug Swanson, it’s “hospitalized—as if some ill person has been turned into a hospital.” He also doesn’t care for “snuck” and wishes it had “sneaked away a long time ago.”

“Here are a few that make my skin crawl,” wrote Chris Lee. “Where you at? Where’s that other dude at? Awesome!”

Don Reed, who graduated from San Luis Obispo High School in 1941, added “ya know,” “bling” and “at the end of the day.”

“Is ‘not a problem’ a proper response to ‘thank you’?” asked Don and Rowena Smith. It also irritated them that “at business checkout, we always hear the trite words, ‘Have a good day!’ Ugh!”

Several writers, including self-described “grammar Nazi” Laurie Gage of Paso Robles, objected to the use of “I” where “me” should be used, as the object of a preposition, for example, or a direct object.

“The number of well educated people who routinely use ‘I’ as the object of a preposition is staggering,” agreed Crissa Hewitt of San Luis Obispo. “Would it really sound proper to say, ‘He took I to the store?’ ”

There are more, but I have room for only 500 words. I’ll try to make this a regular feature, so keep writing.