Archive: Arts & Entertainment

SMART TALK SMART TALK

By Dr. Perse P. Cassidy

UNMANNED DRONE: At the Center for English as a First Language, we're always astonished when we hear or see the laughable term unmanned drone. Does no one know that a drone, by definition, has no pilot? Really?

If this subject comes up after hours in the Fowler Lounge, someone often remembers that newscasters also feel compelled to say two-hulled catamaran, as if we all had just arrived from the Stone Age.  Then somebody calls out experimental laboratory, genetic mutation, and on and on into the night.

Do the media think we're all that ignorant? And do they know they're committing the cardinal sin of insulting their audience? But if they don't know, who's ignorant now?

We're probably seeing ignorance hiding behind insecurity. Like the minor official who solemnly reports that "the vehicle was proceeding at a high rate of speed" instead of "the car was going fast," people who insult us with redundancies like unmanned drone and genetic mutation are desperately trying to get noticed, by using verbiage to impress -- and only the ignorant are impressed -- or by using verbiage to take up as much print space or airtime as possible. Probably both.

Which suggests a Word for the Day. Being inane while believing one is being brilliant is a perfect example of being fatuous.

 

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