We all know it's the media's silly season, not much going on and lots of air time and print pages to fill. But to have on the couch two teenage girls, one of whom had just had her arm tattooed with lyrics from a One Direction song (she'll regret that later) and the other saying she wanted to spend the rest of her life with her choice of band member, is an insult to those intelligent people watching.
It's an insult because (a) it's most definitely neither news nor interesting; (b) neither young lady could speak intelligibly or put across any reason why they like One Direction as opposed to any other boy band; and (c) every other word was 'like' - which is extremely frustrating and unnecessary. "Like" has taken over from "innit" or "you know" or "whatever" but it's just as irritating, if not more.
OK, I'm sounding like (used as a preposition) an old fuddy-duddy, I know - but why have schools and parents allowed youngsters to speak in such a way? Is it from fear of litigation - maybe violating their 'Human Right to speak in a slovenly and incomprehensible way' or fear of being threatened - "We'll, like, speak in whatever way, like, we wanna"?!
What possible hope do we have when our bastion and gatekeeper of the English language, our very own BBC, allows examples like this on our screen as being acceptable?
There are also so many typographical errors in newspapers and on screen, and factual inaccuracies too - just recently one TV station told us the Battle of Trafalgar was in the 18th century when it was actually in 1805 (the 19th century). The chef on the ITV Lorraine show today talked about "vinegar-ette" instead of vinaigrette, and so it goes on.
I really must lie down in a darkened room now before I self-combust! Either that or stop watching early morning TV...
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