Finally. The media can now stop calling John McCain the "presumptive" presidential nominee. He's now just "the nominee," and reporters all over the country can breathe a sigh of relief knowing they can safely make their deadlines since they don't have to waste precious moments by typing that extra word every time they mention his name in a story.
Why have they been adding that extra word for these last several months? Anal retentiveness, of course. He's not officially the nominee until they hold the roll count at the Republican National Convention. Up until that point we all have to act as though the RNC is going to surprise everyone by nominating the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, or someone else, instead of the guy who they have already obviously picked, and have been running commercials for out the wazoo.
While I'm complaining about other really stupid and trivial things, what is the deal with reporters who are now using the phrase "an historic?" This is "an historic election." "An historic storm" is on the way. Last I checked, the letter "h" is still a consonant, and I grew up learning that you use "a" before words that begin with a consonant.
I can't imagine anyone saying, "Look! An history book!" So why "an historic?" I don't get it.
Well, here it is... my first 24 hours of being a blogger, and I've mostly spent my blogging time whining about dumb things. I'm going to try really hard to come up with something more festive and positive tomorrow. It'll be Friday and everything!
1 comment:
I wondered about the "an" thing as well, and what I learned was this: Snooty English (like, from England) types don't really pronounce the "H" in historic, therefore for them it was deemed correct to use "an" in front of "istoric". This, however, does not explain North American "h" pronouncing reporters using "an" in this manner.
check this: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/anhistoric.html
This is definitely an lesson we can all learn from.
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