On matters of English usage, I tend to be a liberal anti-prescriptionist, so of course I know that English is a living language and must continually evolve to stay healthy. For every supposed error that drives you crazy — be it using impact/contact/network as a verb, imagining a singular kudo, or even (my own peeve) the creeping dominance of the misspelled "miniscule" — I can name parallel cases from the history of the language which are now happily accepted by everyone without a second thought (question/experience/mention; pea; island).

I understand that new words are invented all the time and, no matter how incorrect, ugly, or just plain baffling some of the youngsters may seem to be, we cannot shun the new generation of vocabulary without turning the language into a fossil.

All of that notwithstanding, some inventions are truly abominations and deserve to be strangled at birth. One such is "webinar", which I encountered for the first time this morning (in the course of browsing the Web at work for actual work-related reasons!). I hope I never see that monstrosity again.

12:22:26 AM  [permalink]  comment []