The NPR man said that that original information had been “misconstrued” and miscommunicated. As I type this in Microsoft Word, these preceding two words have been underlined with a squiggly red line meaning that they are not in the dictionary.
Which is my point.
This coal miner story is an unspeakable tragedy but my topic at hand is of journalistic weakness and illiteracy.
This morning on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC (and NPR) all the talking heads spoke of a miscommunication. What is miscommunication?
- An error in the material communicated?
- A technical interruption of the material being transmitted?
- A swear word?
- Information that one didn’t mean to say?
- A fact that was once true but later became false?
- A lie?
- An involuntary bodily sound?
It turns out that the miners were dead. The headlines at midnight were FALSE. Not “miscommunicated”. FALSE.
The networks broadcasted a lie – pure and simple. Notice I didn’t say “they lied”. The news had not corroborated with authorities or with the source of the “they are alive” proclamation. Just like the cheering crowds behind them, the news organizations swallowed the story whole.
The second issue is meaningless words. If there is only one profession left in our society that demands proper vocabulary and grammar, shouldn’t it be journalism?
Forget public schools, proper English education disappeared decades ago. I would hope there would be just one place left that could preserve the English language properly, somewhere besides the Jeopardy show.
I sincerely hope that my oFten (with the “f” sound) repeatedly overredundant phraseology is making a dent and that I am not overexaggerating my point. I shall now enter the airport terminal and dethaw from the terrible cold.
10 comments:
Language is constantly evolving. Be that as it may, as a traditionalist I note the following.
'Misconstrued' is a recognized word and has been for a long time. For example, the word is contained at page 915 of Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 1983.
'Miscommunicate' (or its claimed forms) is more problematic. It is not in the dictionary just referred to and is not in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary. Although the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary does contain 'miscommunication' (a noun), it does not contain a verb form, 'miscommunicate.' Note, however, that this online version is abridged. Although there is an unabridged version, I'm not going to pay $4.95 per month for the privilege of trying to find out if 'miscommunicate' is in the unabridged version. I may stop at the library later today, and if I come up with anything else I'll pass it on.
I stand overcorrected on "misconstrue" - I had not defined "construe" properly.
Either wasy I don't like overexaggerations -- am I being overredundant?
;)
Although I'm not in favor of exaggeration, I don't mind hyperbole when appropriate.
In any event, I stopped at the library and checked the Mirriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. No form of 'miscommunicate' was listed.
Conclusion: Neither 'miscommunicate' nor 'miscommunication' are words recognized as standard American English.
Marcus--(you know we didn't name you that!). Be that as it may I think it's getting late and I must go dethaw my meat for tomorrow as perhaps Dad, others and myself will want to eat irregardless of the weather.
I'm glad you finally figured out about misconstrued....and thanks to Keith for all his research. If you miss the communication...well, I guess you must have been out to lunch. :-)
Mom
Since we're on the subject of standard English, we note the following.
1. 'Dad, others, and myself' should actually be 'Dad, others, and I.' 'Myself' is a reflexive pronoun and in this context is not standard English.
2. The word 'irregardless' is not standard English. The 'ir' prefix is redundant since the use of the ending -less already expresses the negative idea. In standard English, we would say 'regardless.'
Ya- I was being sarcastic. Illustrating absurity by being absurd.
enjoy your blog; but hey, isn't there more important issues to invest and discover for your precious time?
Words of a wise former manager come to mind. He said 'it dosn't matter how you say it as long as they understand it'.
Communicate in any way and forget this semantics nonsense, after all Socrates had more free time than possibly you or me.
Cheers............Sid
In order to have a society, there must be a common culture that unites the citizens. This includes a common language.
Since 'miscommunicate' is not a word, how is someone to know what someone else means when he uses it? Ordinarily one would use a dictionary for that --- look the word up to see what it means --- but when the word doesn't exist, one can't do that.
That's one of the points here. When one uses words that don't exist, he's not communicating. People don't understand what that person means.
In addition, readers/listeners end up discussing the nonexistent word as opposed to discussing the substance of the article/oral comments! --- just as we're doing here! Is that what the author/speaker intended???!!!
Hey Anonymous!
To tolerate bad English is to perpetuate ignorance. And by the way, don't send anymore replies under the "anonymous" heading, as I will not any longer acknowledge or respond to cowards.
Did I dun make that klear?
Huron, just a note to let you know that I made those grammatical errors on purpose to make a point. Point is that many English words are used incorrectly eg. dethaw, irregarldess, myself....just wanted to let you know my English is better than that. :-) Sid, lighten up. I have as much time as Socrates did....24 hours in a day.
Mama Bear
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