Waiting on the next Whitney Houston power ballad, fresh off tearing up to some Richard Marx tune, that golden voice with golden hair comes on again. Because we all need a little intelligence in our lives, naturally I kept it locked to John Tesh. Everything was going swimmingly, too — of course fighting in front of your children is good for them and I will remember to cut down on sweets when pregnant — until he said the ‘F’ word.
I know, unbelievable, right? Here was a long-time broadcaster, famed Entertainment Tonight host, and owner of a voice that makes grown men weep, saying ‘fer’ on air.
This utterance was not element 26 in his reciting of the period table in French, nay, it was pronounced fur, his attempt at saying ‘for.’
In fairness, we should not hold this against Tesh too much — rather, admonish him for once showing up to an interview in a flowered shirt — for it is a crime we are all guilty of. Saying ‘fer’ has become part of our accent; consider the following commonly heard sentence around the Times-Herald:
‘So, you know, Carter Haydu has been alive fer ferever. He’s almost old enough to remember a Toronna Maple Leafs championship team.’
Along with constantly mispronouncing our largest city’s name, starting sentences with ‘so’ and inserting ‘you know’ and ‘like’ every third word, our spoken language is taking a lot of liberties with grammar.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Language is constantly evolving, and other than high school students trying to make it through Hamlet, have we suffered any from the loss of Olde English from common lexicon?
But we should be a tad more mindful of pronunciation, especially of commonly-used words. With much of the world eager to learn English, the global language of business, we should, with our lifetimes of practice, be getting it right.
Language evolution is taking place rapidly in the technological era. Letters are cut out wherever possible to fulfill character limits on social media sites and text messages, resulting in ‘LOL, ur gr8, wnt 2 prty?’ being the new way to ask a pretty girl out on a date.
It is crude, it is ugly, and it is a young person thing — I thought. Until, that is, my dear mum wrote ‘BFN’ at the end of a recent e-mail.
My brain, in a head that was shaking back and forth, rapidly ran through the possibilities. Bring food now? Bite finger nails? Brett Favre news?
I eventually assumed it symbolized ‘bye for now,’ but I was deeply unsettled. If my proper British mumsy is using three letter greetings, how much longer until we all are, and how soon will we all be walking around speaking these shortcuts like Japanese robots?
So as not to have a Festival of Words in 50 years with book titles like My flyin crocs r btr than urs and Elizabeth May: 4T yrs as PM, we ought to get to fixing our language.
This starts by giving all the self-appointed ‘grammar police’ actual powers. Right now their powers include stern looks and ‘tsk tsks’; allow them to deliver slaps on the wrist and we will all surely shape up.
All we need now is a universally famous, intensely respected, charming-as-pie leader for the grammar revival movement.
I hope John Tesh is not busy.
Myles Fish can be reached at 691-1263.
