- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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SMART TALK
by Dr. Will S. Sert
WAYS AND MEANS: Here at the Center for English as a First Language, we have a collection of the most outrageous kind of redundancy. In case English is not our first language, the speaker condescendingly uses synonyms, as if we had no idea what the first word means.
Actually, it's usually the speaker who has such a loose grip on the thought process that he or she thinks it's smart to flaunt their knowledge of basic words.
Politicians, for instance. Who else could have thought Ways and Means was a smart name for a congressional committee? Maybe Methods and Techniques sounded just too complicated.
Politicians are also fond of insisting that "it is only right and proper" to pass whatever self-serving bill they are enacting.
Assuming they can produce the ways and means.