{"id":12047,"date":"2009-12-04T16:48:44","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T16:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/12\/04\/a-language-rant-perks\/"},"modified":"2009-12-04T16:48:44","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T16:48:44","slug":"a-language-rant-perks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/12\/04\/a-language-rant-perks\/","title":{"rendered":"A Language Rant: ‘Perks’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A C-Span segment one morning bore the title, 'Congressional Perks.' It was a good program, as almost all C-Span offerings are, but would it have killed them to use the right word, 'perquisites'?  <\/font><\/p>\n

If this were an isolated example, then you could accuse me, with justification, of being a pedantic ass. Some of you will do so in any case. But I could give a hundred similar examples, and you hope I won't.<\/font><\/p>\n

Slang and slovenliness have their places and there is some here. But shouldn't C-Span be held to a higher standard than this weblog? For a blogger to blur the boundary between slang and formal discourse is par for the course: we bloggers are experimenting, often playfully, with a new medium. But there should be precincts in which formal discourse is preserved.<\/font><\/p>\n

I once had an idiot of a student who complained about my 'high-brow' language. I felt disgust for her and her ilk: the people (including administrators and professors) who think a university exists to pander to a paying clientele and sink to the level of the surrounding society. But that's a separate rant with several subtopics: abdication of authority; the misuse of student teaching evaluations; the political correctness that allows a moron such as Ward Churchill to be hired and get tenure. . . .<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A C-Span segment one morning bore the title, 'Congressional Perks.' It was a good program, as almost all C-Span offerings are, but would it have killed them to use the right word, 'perquisites'?  If this were an isolated example, then you could accuse me, with justification, of being a pedantic ass. Some of you will do … Continue reading “A Language Rant: ‘Perks’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}