June 29, 2016 Article

The Old Coot is anti-presumptive.

By Merlin Lessler

The countdown is on! Two significant dates loom ahead, and I can’t wait! I’m more anxious than a seven year-old waiting for Santa. My world, yours too, will be rid of half of it on July 20th and the remainder on July 27th. No longer will we be forced to hear, Presumptive Nominee, all day, every day, every time we turn on a radio or TV or open a newspaper.

I don’t remember hearing this term so often in past election years. It’s so bad this time around that it’s grating on my psyche and makes me want to scream, "Shut up!” No one in the media is creative anymore. They all follow the same script, report the same stories in the exact same way and use the same terms. It’s as though they were handed a script instead of a journalism degree. Couldn’t just one newscaster on network TV and radio, or one newspaper reporter or columnist use another word than presumptive? How about likely, or probable, or inevitable, or potential? Anything but presumptive, presumptive, presumptive.

And, I think it’s a snob thing. They use it because it sounds highbrow and demonstrates their superior intelligence. I think they are quite presumptuous in that assumption.

I’m afraid, Presumptive, will migrate into everyday language and become a commonly used word. We’ll have to strike fiancée from our vocabulary and replace it with presumptive wife. Preschooler? No more; a four year-old will be a presumptive kindergartner. Pre-med and doctorial students will be referred to as presumptive doctors.

We have a problem in our culture. Once a word or a phrase comes into common use, we don’t know how to discard it when it’s worn out. How about, AS WE SPEAK? You hear this in person and from the media all the time. What was so wrong with RIGHT NOW? Or NOW? Besides, AS WE SPEAK, isn’t accurate anyway. AS I SPEAK AND YOU LISTEN is the correct term.

And, while I’m looking around for garbage to take to the curb, I’ll happily throw in, AT THE END OF THE DAY. Its use is starting to fade, but maybe we can coerce it into retirement. SPOILER ALERT is a newcomer to the media copycats, but even in its infancy, it’s starting to go stale. NO PROBLEM is another one; I’ve campaigned for years to have it stricken from the language and replaced with that old standard, YOU’RE WELCOME, to no avail. I guess, at the end of the day, I may be the only one who is irked by these lame, overused phrases. It’s what moved me from presumptive old coot, to old coot.

Comments! Presumptive Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com