Did anyone happen to catch the portion of the Olympics television coverage last night when they did the story about the ancient Olympics site where the shot put and some other events will be held? It was actually not bad. And then, Bob Costas (is that his name?) got to speak and he showed that the English language is probably close to being on its last legs. This is what he said as the other correspondent signed off:

Props to you Dan for a fine report.

My wife looked at each other in stunned disbelief. Did we just hear him say, "props"? In the land which gave us the word, "kudos"? He said it so matter of factly, in that faux-gravitas newscaster's voice, the one that makes everything sound so important and so significant. There was no hint of mockery or self-doubt. No sense that he was being forced to use this term by an ever increasingly youth conscious marketing department trying to reel in the younger viewers. Nope. He used it like it was a perfectly acceptable synonym for the eminently serviceable word, "congratulations". I admit that hoary old thing as 5 syllables to the 1 in "props", but still. Not a reasonable excuse.

Normally, I don't look to sportscasters for examples of good English. In fact, the opposite is true. My favorite sportscaster malaprop was in the Fall of 1985 when, while watching the pre-game to some college football game, the announcer said:

It's very unusual to have these two teams meet so early in the season. This game could have national championship implifications

That one is so good that I have to think sometimes, almost 20 years later, before I use the word implication because implication doesn't sound as important as implification.

But I digress.

The reason Mr. Costas has me so heated up is that there is no good reason to reject many of the excellent words English has put at our disposal to signify congratulations or approval in order to replace them with the darling of the rapper set: "props". In my head, a prop is something you find on a set. Kind of like Mr. Costas, come to think of it.

We may not speak the King's English anymore, but we ought to draw the line somewhere. The way you speak in this country, while not as serious a matter as it is in England, will still serve to either limit or expand your opportunities. Many first generation immigrants will tell you that they learned to speak English here from the television. Teaching them that "props" is an acceptable way to convey congratulations is a dis-service to these people and to anyone else who might be led to think it's now appropriate to walk into the CEO's office and say, "Ms. Smith, props to you on that fine presentation you gave to the analyst community on our new cost accounting recognition system." Can you see that happening?

There are standards and we have them for a reason. Even if mine is the lone voice in the wilderness crying out for rigor and adherence to these standards, so be it. I know my wife will keep me company, at least, and English isn't even among her first two or three languages.

Here endeth the rant. Please resume your normal activities. I think sometimes that if it weren't for this blog, I'd be that guy in the corner. You know the one, the guy muttering to himself who makes you think, did he take his meds?

AN UPDATE

I just read the following article about the value of memorization in teaching children proper English and I extract the following paragraph for your consideration (in which the author does a much better job than I have done in expressing why the dumbing down of our language is such a problem with real consequences for those cheated out of an education):

All these benefits are especially important for inner-city kids. Bill Cosby recently pointed to the tragedy of the black kids he sees “standing on the corner” who “can’t speak English.” “I can’t even talk the way these people talk,” Cosby said: “ ‘Why you ain’t. Where you is.’ ” To kids who have never known anything but demotic English, literary English is bound to seem an alien, all but incomprehensible dialect. Kids who haven’t been exposed to the King’s English in primary school or at home will have a hard time, if they get to college, with works like Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick. In too many cases, they will give up entirely, unable to enter the community of literate citizens—and as a result will live in a world of constricted opportunity.

It's like I posited above, if you think props is a real word, you constrict your opportunities.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:25 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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