Wednesday 30 June 2010

Howler's English? English howlers!

On my early morning power walks, I'm rarely without my MP3 player. Occasionally, I'll select the radio mode just to reassure myself that the world still exists.
This morning I did just that, just in time to hear Radio 4's John Humphrys interview a Guardian journalist.
Oxymoron unintentional.
Now, one might be forgiven for believing that being a Guardian journalist is embarrassing enough, but that was obviously not the case for this particular hack.
He was being interviewed about his passion for collecting World Cup football stickers. A grown man with a 14-year old son! But let's not dwell on that embarrassment.
In successive sentences, he talked about the "amount of people" and the "amount of women".
For whatever reason the Guardian exists, patently they are not there to act as guardians for the English language.
One can only hope that this journalist's articles are as widely 'read' as the colour that ought to be suffusing across his fizzog.
As a stickler for the language, it's enough to make John Humph.

2 comments:

  1. ...or the Guardian 'di'Peter?
    Stuart

    ReplyDelete
  2. Early morning power walk? It used to be a run or mega cycle. Don't say you're slipping down to my activity level, Peter. I'll order you a cardigan and slippers for Christmas!

    I have to agree about the English, though.

    Richard

    ReplyDelete