A look back from this point in time

So you survived 2007 — if you are extremely old, somewhat infirm, or even slightly Iraqi, congratulations.

A lot of world-shaking events happened last year in politics, economics and science, but as a mere copy editor, I am no more competent to make pronouncements about how to deal with that stuff than, say, a baseball team owner would be.

However, I am perfectly placed to observe the prosaic perfidy perpetrated by the language-using public, and then foist my opinions on readers of this column.

Competition for worst written or verbal sin of the year came down to a tight race between two grotesque locutions that give us self-appointed grammar police an abiding sense of being needed. But before I name the winner, let’s look back at some previous champions.

The top dishonor for 2006 went to “wellness,” which finally replaced all uses of the perfectly serviceable word “health.” May it rest in peace.

Before that we had a run of wins by time-related phrases, starting with “basis,” as in, “The proposed jail location changes on a monthly basis.” The brain-ray that stopped people from saying simply “monthly” is still at large. Then came “this point in time,” chosen for its oniony layers of redundancy.

In 2003 the pure pointlessness of “located” got the judges’ attention, since any jail “located on Near Island” would also be “on Near Island.” This came from the same faction that thinks prepostions can’t take the load alone, so they invented “in conjunction with.”

But nothing matches the classic that started it all. “Utilize” remains king for having absolutely no context where it could mean anything different from “use,” yet continuing its pompous, ubiquitous career unabated.

The runner-up this time is “adversely affected,” another pompous infection from the officialese lexicon. We pray for a cure to the pandemic that has as its main symptom an inability to use the word “harm.” It probably comes from a virus that spreads because of our feeble wellness practices.

But the surprise top place citation for 2007 goes to the confusion of “ground zero” and “square one.” The first time someone said “This setback takes us back to ground zero,” it got little notice. But then it happened again and again, prompting the grammar panel to issue its directive: Stop saying it unless whatever happened really included a ticket to Hiroshima or the World Trade Center.

Mirror writer Drew Herman still refuses to use “impact” as a verb.