Have I now officially crossed the threshold to grumpy old man-dom? Ive been dithering in the doorway for a while. I have just written to ABC complaining about the grammar of the weather report; to wit: On at least 5 occasions during the Friday 24/10 weather bulletin at the end of the 7pm news, conditions of weather forecast for the week ahead, i.e., the future, were referred to in the present tense: is, instead of will be, for example; Tuesday is fine and 23 . . . , et c. The conditions referred to havent happened yet, nor are happening at the time the weather presenter is delivering this information. This, whilst depressingly colloquial and current, is illogical, ungrammatical, stupidly written and very, very annoying, especially to teachers of English such as myself. I wince whilst imagining the effect these egregious grammatical mistakes will most probably have on my, and many other students understanding of tenses, and their probable repetition of such solecisms. Please, set an example, which a national/state broadcaster should: & not condone sloppy, inaccurate and careless speech! At least edit these scripts correctly to reflect conditions now, and conditions anticipated in the future, so that people are not confused, and think correctly about present, near and further future conditions. Please also educate your presenters to deliver these forecasts with a sense of their future projection: we are not living in some perverted version of an eternal now. Am I now a card-carrying curmudgeon?
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:13:32 +0000
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