Our snarky editor Pug Mahoney reports these sillies perpetrated by allegedly professional users of the English language:
"In living memory ..." Dead memory, of course, being of little use. Still, some lives have longer memories than others. Teenagers, for example, do not remember as many events as their grandparents. Likewise, "in recent memory" is pointless, because it doesn't specify how long ago was "recent."
A TV news anchor referred to "battle royals." By analogy, perhaps, to "attorney generals." There are a few instances in the English language where an adjective comes after a noun, but usually, the sentence structure is adjective-noun-verb-object. The first item listed above refers to several battles that rise to a very important, or royal, level. The second would likely be a lawyer in the military. A general attorney would be a lawyer who is not a specialist, whereas a gathering of government prosecutors supervising a staff of lawyers would be attorneys general.
There is a widespread use among many broadcasters who speak of a "fight to the finish." Let's face it, they all are.
Here's a headline that ran on a CNN streaming line: "Russian jet barrel roles over U.S. warplane."
And Snarky Vicki asks, "When did 'conversating' become an acceptable word on news broadcasts?"
Correspondents are welcome to submit further examples of the misuse and abuse of the language by those who should know better to Snark Central.
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