Where have you gone, William Safire?

William Safire was my hero.  I disagreed with all of his politics -- the guy was a right wing nutjob who worked in the Nixon White House.  He wrote Spiro Agnew's famous "nattering nabobs of negativism" line, referring to members of the media.  You didn't think Agnew was capable of thinking up that one himself, did you?   After Agnew resigned in disgrace, Safire became a nattering nabob himself, joining the New York Times.  For the last thirty years of his life, from 1979 to just before he passed away last September, Safire reigned over the language equivalent of Mount Olympus.  He authored the finest column in the world on the use of the English language, called "On Language", appearing regularly in the New York Times Magazine. I never missed it. As a linguistic obsessive, Safire was a man after my own heart.  He was not just interested in language, he was consumed by it.

Safire loved the nuance, the ebb and flow and the music of words.  He admired the melody of a well-turned phrase. I memorized his "Fumblerules of Grammar".  I had to -- I taped it to the wall next to my desk in my high school dorm room. That didn't stop me from being a terrible student, but at least I didn't use no double negatives. Safire's column explored where words (and phrases) originated.  How were they used?  Why?   Best of all, Safire was a master at tearing to ribbons anyone who mangled the language, botched syntax, and just plain humiliated English teachers everywhere.

We now arrive at Heather Unruh. Ms. Unruh is a competent, relentlessly cheerful anchor for WCVB Channel 5 in Boston, which is the ABC affiliate. Truth be told, she is a decent journalist. Walter Cronkite she's not, but she is better than damn near anybody at Channel 7, our NBC station, or (God help us) the local Fox station, which is to journalism as George W. Bush is to profound political thought.  I like Heather, except when she makes up words (not unlike Shrub, who would say things like "Don't misunderestimate me"). Tuesday evening, Heather was reporting on an emergency plane landing at Logan, and finished the segment by promising "We're efforting this story".

No, Heather, you are not efforting the story.  Nobody is efforting the story.  You're working on the story.  You are tracking events.  You will have more details later.  You are NOT efforting, because it's not a word.  It is something mediocre amateurs say to sound impressive, in the vain hope than nobody will figure out that they just pulled a piece of utterly nonsensical drivel out of, well, thin air.  The AP Stylebook, the bible of journalists, is the accepted, authoritative source on what is and is not a word you can use in print or on the air.  I have an AP Stylebook license. Efforting is not a word, Heather.  Your news director and your producer will back me up on that.

Ms. Unruh is not alone in her fanciful inventions.  During the first Gulf War, updates from the Pentagon would talk about the Coalition troops "attritting enemy forces". Attrit?  Get it?   Third person singular present participle of attrition.   Except ya know what?  BZZZT.  Not a word.  They were just making it up as they went along, and figured that since they were in uniform and you weren't, you would not have the temerity to question that they were mangling the language just as severely as they were mangling Iraqi defenses around Baghdad.   Sorry, uniforms don't impress me.  You screw up the language and I get to call bullshit just as loudly as your English teacher would have, were she/he in the room.

My point is that language exists to be employed correctly, not faked like a teenager's license used to get into a club.   We all get dumbed down that much more when public figures perform the verbal (or written) equivalent of flying a jet into the side of a mountain.   Let's say you repair automobiles. If you pay for a sign to be made that will hang above your shop, do you think it doesn't matter if you insist you can repair a car made by "Honnda" or "Accura"?  If you cannot even spell the name of the automotive line, why should I have confidence that you'll be competent to handle my car if I drop it off?    And please do not start in with "Well, we can't all be perfectionists like you, David".  Spelling counts, kids.  It's not as if the proper spelling of Honda or Acura is a closely guarded secret. When you get a chance, mosey on over to Lowell Road in Hudson, New Hampshire some day.  There is an auto repair facility that promises it will work on your Honnda or your Accura.  Honest. I drive by it on a semi-regular basis, but I wouldn't stop in there if it was the proverbial last shop on earth. For Ms. Unruh and the unnamed Defense Department spokesman (as well as occupants of the Oval Office and other august positions of public visibility), when you work with words all day, every day, it is your solemn duty to do it with a high degree of accuracy -- even if you drive an Accura.

We can agree to disagree on politics, sports, even the weather.  But there is such a thing as right and wrong when it comes to the written word.  France and Israel both have boards of language mavens specifically tasked with monitoring usage of French and Hebrew respectively, and safeguarding their proper use.  We have professional boards of licensing for doctors, dentists, lawyers, and even real estate agents, but not the language we speak, read and write?  That feels wrong.   Someone should start one.  It is worth the effort.

Photo credit: Heather Unruh, thebostonchannel.com.  William Safire, salon.com. Acura logo, theautochannel.com.