I made a decision a while ago – stop going after the mutilators of the language.

Stop being an apostrophe policeman, a spelling policeman and a pronunciation policeman but the latest thing to intrude has caused me to snap, to break my word to myself!

It started with the apostrophe – and I know there is, of late, a lot of controversial debate around it slowly being accepted to indicate a plural… WHAT!? I scream silently inside my head, WHAT?

Then another of my favourites popped up this morning BREAK being used instead of BRAKE to stop something. Come ON people!

Of course THESE always jar the senses and are so common, as if thrown at the page to land where they will. Rather like too much confetti at a traditional wedding, these words get in everywhere, every day. THESE are… their/there (and even they’re), your/you’re, cant/can’t, his/he’s, whose/who’s and perhaps a few others that don’t come to mind immediately.

A few years ago I had to consciously give up on entrepreneur. The imaginative pronunciations were myriad – and they all grated!

Then there were JANYEWRY and FEBYEWRY and JILL-EYE – a long time ago it seems, the first two months of the year lost an R and the U in July was somehow subsumed by an I….still the case.

Anyway, just as I had settled down and thought myself at last immunised against all these irritations along comes the latest – and it is all over the radio and in television voice-overs.

It is TUMOURIC! For something that is supposed to be beneficial to one’s health and well-being, making it sound like something life-threatening, cancerous even, is awful!

TURMERIC is pronounced as it is written see this link   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmeric – and the Oxford dictionary gives this definition https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/turmeric and includes  an audio file so that it can be listened to.

If you don’t want to look it up then:
TUR as in FUR, TURD, STIR or BURR. The letter R appears TWICE and should be sounded TWICE!

Rant over….for now, as I try to come to terms with this latest affront to my (English language) sensibilities.

Of course this is a generalisation. It is really about those who insist on using such poor language in promoting their businesses, or other agendas, with official announcements and texts. Language that is then inflicted upon the listening and reading public – the target audience for their wares.

My rant therefore is for those who could REALLY use the services of someone specialising in proofreading, editing and copywriting. For everyone else perhaps my thoughts are merely an amusement…there goes another language nutter?