Scarcely English: An A to Z of Assaults On Our Language

The English language has evolved throughout its history, and usually for good reasons. However, in recent years, egged on by social media and the ubiquity and velocity of the internet, it has been subject to some grave assaults. There appear no longer to be any rules, in an era when, thanks to the web (another word to have changed its meaning), everyone can be a published author — completely unedited and unregulated. This often has dire consequences for the English tongue.

A Litany of Linguistic Missteps

Simon Heffer's A to Z runs through a whole litany of:

• Common confusions:
  Examples include 'flaunt' and 'flout', 'imply' and 'infer', 'uninterested' and 'disinterested'.
• Unidiomatic English:
  Phrases such as 'fed up of', 'focus around', and the use of 'impacted' in constructions like 'the loss impacted him badly'.
• Lazy expressions:
  In today's usage, every extended activity becomes an '-athon', and every scandal is branded a 'Something-gate'.

It also bemoans some truly awful neologisms, including 'infotainment' and 'funwashing', and registers the horror of those who do not believe that you can answer the question "How are you?" with the words 'I'm good'.

A Plea for Accuracy and Elegance

Trenchant and sprinkled with dry wit, Scarcely English is both a chamber of horrors of bad and lazy English and a plea for accuracy, clear thinking, and elegance.