Other Tongue

As I write this, we don’t know who the
next president will be, but we do know two things. One, if Barack Obama
wins, this election will genuinely be historic. The ascension to power
of a man of African descent in a country bedeviled by race since its
founding is a watershed event. Two, if John McCain wins, the election
will be called historic by pundits who note that McCain is older than
anyone who ever took the oath of office for the first time. 

That’s not really historic, it’s just
mildly interesting. No rap on McCain: It’s not his fault that he’s not
a woman or that his ancestors hail from Europe. He may make history
yet, but not on this day. For some reason the broadcast media lately
seem to think that every time they turn on their mouths what ushers
forth must be of historic significance. Not so. Sometimes it’s just
stuff that happens. 

Newscasters and commentators have even
recognized the ridiculous way they bandy about the word “historic,”
because they have entered a race of escalating modifiers, adding
adverbs such as “genuinely,” “truly” and, my all-time favorite,
“unbelievably” to the noble term “historic.” Once upon a time historic
events were things you read about in history books. Now they are just
filler while we wait for something real to happen. 

As with so many things, sports is a
trendsetter for our society. One week before the election, rain caused
Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, to suspend a World Series
game. Sportscasters and newscasters quickly surmised that this had
never before happened, and immediately began to deploy the H word.
Somehow the notion that the Phillies and the Rays had to wait a few
days to finish a baseball game was deemed “historic.” 

Jackie Robinson’s entrance into baseball
was historic. Postponing the end of Game Five of this championship
series wasn’t historic, it was just a first. Unique isn’t the same as
historic. Having an old president isn’t the same as having a black
president. 

Suspending Game Five was mildly
interesting to some, and very annoying to many who stayed up late and
still did not see the end of the game. But how many of those people
came into work sleepy-eyed the next day to tell their co-workers that
they had witnessed history in the wee hours? Hopefully, not many.

My point is that way too many things are
being called historic these days. It’s reached the point where events
that haven’t even happened yet are being considered historic. Here’s an
example from a television news promotion: “Watch tonight’s historic
debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin.” Would
somebody please tell me what was historic about that debate? It wasn’t
a bad debate. It wasn’t a great debate. It wasn’t really a significant
debate, even by the standards of the times, since most analysts called
it a draw and most polls reflected that it didn’t change much. Yet
somehow CNN knew it was historic even before it began.

My wife is a really good cook. I’m not
saying that just because she feeds me. It’s true. But she doesn’t call
us to dinner every night telling us this is a gourmet dinner. Sometimes
it’s leftovers. And that’s OK. We don’t tune in to the news every day
to hear history. Just tell us what’s news. I think they have a separate
channel for history.

It’s time to give poor old history a
much needed rest. I propose a national moratorium on historic events
that are not truly historic. For the moment, let’s just call them
mildly interesting. While we’re at it, let’s end the use of the term
“game changer.”

The flip side of the trend toward
calling everything historic is the addiction to “breaking news.” Since
every hour of the news cycle is dedicated to pimping some sort of news
event as “breaking,” the cameras and their anchors scramble to find
something breaking somewhere and present it breathlessly to the nation
as such, whether it is a coup in Pakistan or a child stuck in a well in
Potsdam. 

“Breaking news” should have to pass what
I call the “Would you call your friend and say, ‘Did you hear about…?’”
test. If nobody is likely to call their friends to talk about it, it
may be breaking, but it ain’t news. Save the intensity for events that
are truly intense.

It’s not just the media who have
contributed to debasing the language. George W. Bush has taken a
beating for years about his mangled phraseology, but politicians of all
stripes have taken their toll on the Mother Tongue. Let’s give credit
where credit is due. It was Bill Clinton who erroneously turned the
verb “grow” into a transitive verb when he began the popular fad of
promising to “grow the economy.” 

People can grow pumpkins. They can grow
their hair, or grow a beard, or grow old. But we can’t grow an economy
any more than we can grow a third nostril. Economies grow and they
contract. Liberals and conservatives can disagree on the proper role of
government in aiding or inhibiting economic growth, but it is time that
we agreed on the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. 

And one more thing. Between presidents
we will have a “transition.” There will be a “transition team.” But the
administration will not be “transitioning,” because there is no such
verb. Deal?