Everyday Language: Watch your Mouth!

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve turned the radio off because someone said ‘to be perfectly honest’. Why would someone bother even sharing information with you if they weren’t telling the truth? It used to be that some people would say ‘to be honest’, but now they’re going one step further and saying ‘to be perfectly honest’.

Language changes and evolves, though I often feel as if it is devolving. I hear journalists misuse grammar after nouns such as “The government are”, instead of “the government is…” And don’t even get me started on sports journalists. Sorry boys, but Manchester United (insert any football or cricket team) IS not are. It is ‘one’. It is the collection of players. Thank you! 🙂

Such mistakes are so commonplace that even those of us who do what we can to stop correct grammar becoming extinct, can find ourselves saying something we know is wrong simply because it has been so ingrained in our culture. I have yelled and muttered at BBC journalists and even the Prime Minister for their inability to use collective nouns. What hope is there for the children of our culture to write and speak correctly if there are no role models?

Language is such an important tool, and communication is indeed what has helped humans to evolve, and yet the misuse of it is rife.

I once received an email that was not intended for me, but was all about me ~ and it was NOT pleasant. I sent it back to the sender with a note: ‘I think you need to check who your emails are going to before you press send.’ She apologised profusely and said several times ‘it wasn’t personal’. Of course it was personal! It was about me.

‘It wasn’t personal’ is right up there with ‘No offence, but…’ Any idiot who starts a sentence with ‘no offence’ has every intention of trying to offend you!

Have you ever had someone phone you because they had ‘time to kill’ and nothing better to do? How insulting is that? Don’t let them take you hostage. Get on with your day.

I once (in my single days) had a guy turn up at my door wondering if I was free because he was ‘at a loose end’. Charming! Nope, not free. Go away, I’d rather stay home with a good book. Find someone else to ‘kill time’ with. I’m here to live life, and enjoy every second.

Do you find yourself ‘dying’ for a coffee or murdering a beer? Even when we’re trying to be complimentary, we still use negative words: thinking here of the term ‘drop dead gorgeous’. Again, it’s in common usage so it’s easy to slip beyond our radar.

When we bring consciousness to our language, the energy around us and those with whom we interact with changes. Phone a friend because you want to connect and are interested in them and their lives, not because you’ve got time to kill or have nothing better to do. Love your coffee, don’t murder it. That hot guy at the gym? Don’t go getting diabetes from all that eye candy. Find new words, and change your life. Let your lust be a healthy experience! Choose your words carefully.