Listening to politicians, and the people who talk about them on tv, I am often either annoyed or amused by the way in which they inflate their expressions with words and phrases that seem to me meant for another occasion. I've been collecting some examples.
I think massive should be reserved for nouns that can be weighed, at least theoretically: a desk, the edifice of a building, the whole building, a "mobile" phone in a 30-year-old movie. It doesn't describe things that are concepts or mental constructs. No to massive deportations, electoral victories (or defeats), voter defections, purported fraud, and heart attacks.
On cable news shows, you see again and again the same reporters holding court with the host, and one of their favorite ways of starting a sentence is, "According to my reporting . . . ." First, they are on tv so much that it's hard to understand how they can fit in the "reporting" that they do. Second, what they call "reporting": isn't it really just talking to people and then relaying what they said? Just say, "Three dudes, all well-dressed and Ivy-educated, told me the same thing, which is X."
It seems that events in Washington, D.C., are of such weight and solemnity as to require a Latin pedigree: they don't happen or occur, they transpire.
News flash: unique is not a synonym for unusual. The former does not admit of degrees. If you want to say that something is unique, and then in the interests of accuracy begin considering "fairly unique," just say "unusual" or, if you must, "highly unusual." This is basically just another hyperventilation problem--reaching for the superlative when the item in question doesn't qualify.
Hang with me on this one, and then I'll be done for awhile. What the hell is a parameter? I resorted to looking it up, and here's what merriamwebster.com says:
1(a): an arbitrary constant whose value characterizes a member of a system (such as a family of curves); also: a quantity (such as a mean or a variance) that describes a statistical population
(b) an independent variable used to express the coordinates of a variable point and functions of them--compare parametric equation
2: any of a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something--parameters of the atmosphere such as temperature, pressure, and density
3: something represented by a parameter: a characteristic element; broadly: characteristic, element, factor--political dissent as a parameter of modern life
health care is a universal parameter, ... a ubiquitous concern across every age, occupation, and class line.--Wayne Biddle
4: limit; boundary--usually used in the plural--the parameters of science fiction--The investigation stayed within the parameters set by the court.
A possible theory of the case would be that politicians and pundits always have in mind meaning 4 and that the reason they say parameter instead of boundary or limit is that they're trying to borrow the aura of sophistication hovering over meanings 1(a), 1(b), 2, and 3. A secondary theory would be that, strictly speaking, meaning 4 is incorrect, but there are so many tv talkers for whom boundary is too everyday that finally the dictionary people relented.
Maybe more later when I've had another dose of cable news.
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