Completely destroying English 'going forward'

A small news item caught my eye on the international page the other day. Out of America, it was the release of the Lake Superior State University's 33rd annual list of words banished from the Queen's English for misuse.

This interested me because I'm forever throwing stuff at the TV or radio and, dare I say it, squirming over stuff I read in newspapers.

Before I touch on the things that drive my sad life up the wall, here's a few from the university's list.

One submitter pondered that if someone authored a book, could someone else paintered a picture?

Another bemoaned the overuse of "post-9/ 11".

"You'd think," he ventured, "the United States didn't have jet fighters, nuclear bombs and secret agents, let alone electricity, pre-9/ 11."

Other phrases have emerged in the States post-9/11 to cause some to take up arms. What exactly are "pockets of resistance", and is an "enemy combatant" twice as dangerous as a friendly combatant?

"Surge" is no longer reserved for waves and electricity, authored a man tired of reading about his country's troop movements in Iraq. "Surge really ought to recede," he wrote, before wondering if he could have a surge in his waist.

He's probably the same guy who gets annoyed by teenagers use of language. "This random guy, singing this random song . . . It was so random. Grrrrr. How can a person be random?"

Police the world over have their own language of course. That they are constantly seeking a "person of interest" is comforting. We'd get upset surely if they weren't.

We can assume too that when they are "no longer seeking anyone to assist with their inquiries", that they must have found their person of interest.

Emergency services often talk of accidents "that didn't have to happen", which means some obviously are meant to happen.

I find myself yelling at the telly when we're told some "breaking news" is coming in, which must mean in TV land there is such a thing as old news; and I start to throw things when the breaking news is about something that's "completely destroyed". What a shame it wasn't just a little bit destroyed, but then maybe it wouldn't be breaking news.

I know for a fact too that when they say something has been "decimated", they don't mean its been reduced by a tenth, they mean it's been absolutely, totally destroyed.

Things that are "all new" irritate me, especially if it's body wash. Someone please tell me, is this stuff soap?

Erectile dysfunction (too much information), signage (signs), weather ambassador (what?), obese (fat), potato and moist also grate me. I have no reason for not liking the last two, I just don't.

My least favourite phrase of all though is one grown adults around the globe use, and supposedly intelligent folk at that. Business people started doing this first, politicians picked up on it and now everyone's using it.

They are all "going forward". The phrase is never needed. Never. "Going forward we hope to decimate the English language", is no different to "We hope to decimate the English language".

But it's not just the words in this case, it's the mentality that goes with using them. To me its a show-off phrase. "Look at me, I'm an up-to-date person because I'm `going forward'."

I just hope they're not completely destroyed along the way.

If you want to know how pathetic I am about language, don't start me on the use of "only".

Joe might have said he'd "only be away for five minutes" but I know he means "he'll be away for only five minutes". Oh I know there's a thing called common usage (use?) and English is an evolving language, but going forward, do we all have to be sheep?

I'm going to be "totally unique" and hold out a bit longer.