Monday, September 17, 2012

The trigger of my insanity...

One of my favorite scenes from The Princess Bride is when there is a dust up over the word "inconceivable" and the supposed ignorant one tries to correct the allegedly intelligent one.


You keep using that word.  The political silly season has about driven me crazy and we have far to go.  One of the triggers of my distress is the abundant use by the Obama administration of the word "unprecedented."  It seems that nearly every dang thing about that administration is "unprecedented."  If you watched UN Ambassador Rice on the Sunday talk shows, she exemplified the Obama infatuation with that word.  There are a million other examples I could have chosen -- this being only the most recent.  The only problem is that whoever writes the talking memos has not bothered to look up this word.  This flagrant violation of usage is, well, unprecedented.


un·prec·e·dent·ed   [uhn-pres-i-den-tid] adjective; meaning without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled: an unprecedented event.

I am no linguist and I make my share of unprecedented errors in grammar, vocabulary, etc., but this one just about drives me crazy.  I am inclined to vote out the people who abuse this word just so I won't have to hear it abused over and over again.  I know.  That is not a very good reason for voting for or against someone.  However, if it will keep me from the brink of insanity, could someone please make them stop!!!!!  

5 comments:

Carl Vehse said...

One of the triggers of my distress is the abundant use by the Obama administration of the word "unprecedented."

There is an old (Italian?) wives' tale that in cooking spagetti, when a piece is thrown against a wall and sticks, the spagetti is ready. In the case of Obamanure, it takes a lot to be thrown before any of it manages to stick.

DRG said...

I'd like to refer to one upcoming event of the current Administration as "unPresidented" --anyone care to join me in my hope for some change...

Janis Williams said...

Br. Vehse,

I prefer the analogy for the current administration's lack of , well, there are too many adjetives, so I'll delete them all.

Anyway, it is more like nailing jello to the wall than throwing spaghetti or the other "s" word against a wall

Anonymous said...

Another word to add to your list-tolerance.

Mary

TammyV said...

Unfortunately, Obama is correct since he is the unprecedented president that has so irresponsibly destroyed our nations credit rating and unprecedented president in obtaining so much job loss, etc.