Even on NPR?

It's probably too much to expect perfection from a group of broadcast journalist who have to be subsidized by the government. I choke on the admission that I've become a "listener" of NPR, perhaps in an effort to relate to my colleagues a little more (most are devout NPR listeners, if not financial supporters), it's not the fashion for conservatives like me.

Now that I have listened to NPR a fair amount, I honestly do expect more of them than their cable and network counterparts. The utter stupidity of what you get on most cable news is intolerable... sadly, most people choose to tolerate the network that matches their political leanings (let's be honest, FOX for conservatives and basically the rest of the alphabet soup for liberals... ).

Without regard for your state of mind (red or blue) -- you should tolerate use of the non-word "irregrardless" in a report or diatribe. That would be "regardless" of your leanings, adding an extra syllable to a word, presumably to make yourself sound smarter, makes no sense.

It goes on the stack of words that, once uttered, reveal a fissure in one's credibility. Even, as was the case this week on NPR, one is reporting on the plight of working poor people in Latin America. When I hear that word, I consider that the speaker is lacking regard for my ears, thus it runs through the Thesaurus in my head as "ear-regardless."

Goood Day.

Paul Harvey passed away at the age of 90 after 58 years on the radio.
There are somethings that make me seem old to my classmates co-workers... but I'll just embrace that today. I am 45 and as recently as two weeks ago I can recall driving in my car listening to a Paul Harvey News and Commentary on the radio. Not XM... AM.
He sounded older, it had been a couple years since I had heard him. The voice was a bit more gravely and strained, but unmistakably Paul Harvey.

I can recall moments from early childhood in California when my dad would listen to a radio (transistor... with knobs and an antennae) and hearing that Paul Harvey optimism and energy. I was with my 13 year old daughter a few months ago and happened to catch a Paul Harvey "Rest of the Story" on my way back from western Pennsylvania and I made her listen. We learned something -- I think the story was about Reggie Jackson and his upbringing. I watched Reggie play for the Oakland A's when I was a kid... and I recall listening to Paul Harvey on an San Francisco AM station back then as well.

Perhaps my daughter will have similar memories of me, as I do of my father listening to Paul Harvey. Maybe Paul will just be someone her dad used to listen to... but all this, to me, is an indication of Paul Harvey's place in American culture. I've seen Simpson's episodes reference Paul Harvey... and we've all heard him at some point, if only bits and pieces of sound in the background at a construction site, a garage or a diner where the radio plays all day long (on AM... not XM). He's been on radios coast to coast since Truman was in the white house.

I felt a genuine sense of loss when Johnny Cash died, and Ray Charles. Both icons with feature length struggles and triumphs. But there does not seem to be a low spot in Harvey's history. Maybe his star never shined as brightly as those musical legends, but he provided unparalleled continuity. I've heard his voice age over the course of 45 years, but I've never heard it waiver.

Perhaps what I sense is something really unusual... that he was a role model. While we all heard him, almost daily for 58 years, he had a much quieter message that we'd all do well to hear now.

I'll miss Paul Harvey for the rest of my life.

Let's give "literally" a rest. Literally.

I have a running joke with my kids, they make a joke or sarcastic comment and I interpret it in the most literal fashion to either compound or confound their joke. I then refer to myself as "Captain Literal," the construct of a lame superhero with the catch phrase, "I'm not really a Captain."

Irony, sarcasm and facetiousness being my favorite style of humor, this occasionally works for a chuckle or two. The underlying purpose is to actually apply the term "literal" correctly, and point out the absurdity of many of our comments by parsing the actual meaning of the words when they are far from their intent.

While it's a cliché to quote Webster's to make an argument, here it seems most appropriate. Literally — (according to Webster's dictionary) 1. According to the strict meaning of the words; not figuratively; as a man and his wife cannot be literally one flesh. 2. with close adherence to the words; word by word; to quote a writer literally

There is more, but I think the first two entries make their point. My ire is inflamed by the distracting use of "literally" as a point of emphasis that is apparently ignorant of any appropriate meaning. There is a DRTV spot for a draft stopper (goes at the bottom of your doors) that talks about how drafty doors "literally" cause your money to run out though the cracks. And they have a very literal bit of animation that shows dollar bills being sucked under a door... I guess this happens, people leave their money on the floor and then the draft "literally" sucks their money out into the streets. A similar ad for a local window company makes the same claim, that if you don't have their insulated windows, you're "literally" throwing money out the window.

First of all, if you're throwing money out your windows or putting it in front of doors to be sucked out, please send me your address so I can go about collecting your cash so I can literally put it in my pocket.

I've heard the same stupidity seep into broadcast news. A report on the radio mentioned a "literal mountain of paperwork" some local court had to sift through to assemble a case. Really? A mountain? I guess "mountain" is subjective, to an ant it's a mountain and to a human it's a mole hill. I guess to intellectual ants, it's a mountain.

I guess "figuratively" goes without saying. To simply say, "you're throwing money away" or "we have a mountain of paperwork" assumes the audience has an I.Q. sufficient to recognize that there is no one putting cash in the trash and that they won't be skiing inside the office any time soon. However, does it take many more I.Q. points to recognize the inappropriate use of the word "literally?"

The irony in this joke is that people use this word to sound intellectual, all the while ignoring or being completely ignorant of the true meaning of the crutch-word. And by "crutch" I was being figurative.

I suspect more than a few of us will feel convicted. I often find myself using or over-using a word or phrase with annoying frequency. I don't put myself above this problem, but "literally" has more than outlived its welcome. If you find your self about to add "literally" to an expository comment, take a deep breath (literally), then bite your tongue (figuratively).