Metonym-Rods

(C-Day minus final read through; supervisor edits; defence) OK, so this is a post a long time in the making, but the breaking point has finally been hit. An article by George Orwell once chastised the use of "dead metaphors", that is, analogies and metonym so over-used as to no longer properly lend the audience the true value of the comparison. "Falling in love" being the easiest example that comes to mind, where use is so common, the feelings involved in this free fall sensation are lost. However, the importance of dead metaphors to me here are that they are great examples of intellectual laziness. Instead of coming up with fresh comparisons, or weaving the highly flexible English language into a tapestry of imagery, these authors cement age-old comparisons further in place.

Now, I know it is too much to expect the journalists who publish daily articles in online and print newspapers to craft their words into anything other than mostly descriptive bunk. I do, honestly. However, this is not the only example of intellectual laziness these days. I do not think it is too much to ask that these daily writers at least spell their stupid, ancient word-smithing correctly. Everyday there are countless spelling errors, typos, and grammatical errors in every paper from the strictly online Huffington Post, to the hoity National Post and Globe & Mail. I understand that there is an impetus to get articles out on time in order to get the newspapers shipped on time, but there is no excuse for not revising all those mistakes in the online versions. Do they even read their own work?! What exactly are the editors doing? That would be the equivalent of a plumber refusing to plumb, a teacher avoiding the teaching aspect of their job.

It used to be said that in order to read the Toronto Star, one needed at minimum a 3rd grade reading level, but I do not believe it is a requirement to write as if one was in fact in the 3rd grade. The population is becoming collectively more stupid, there is no need to hasten this process. We might end up closer to our American counterparts where dollars stripped from the education system to fuel the military fools learning so badly that generations later they cannot comprehend the value of discontinuing pointless further war efforts, forever perpetuating the cycle of stupid.

The 'expecting too much from newspapers was mine' song of the day: My Last Mistake - Dan Auerbach