Hello, it's the master bedroom, not masterbed room!

Someone was quoted in my blog entry yesterday as saying that the English language is stupid due to its apparent inconsistencies. But that is precisely why it is such a fun language! Even the native speakers make mistakes but a lot of bloopers may be avoided if, once we become aware of our "sins" of commission or omission, we make the effort to not repeat them. I hold newsmakers, news readers, fellow journalists and advertising copywriters to a higher standard.

* Just today in Parliament, an MP kept saying "tue-tion" for "tue-ee-tion" (tuition).
* Years ago, one minister famously pronounced condominium as "condom-minium" and since then, almost everyone else seems to have followed suit (it should be "condo-minium" ).
* I never fail to be amused when someone utters "masterbed room" instead of "master bedroom" (try it... it'll sound like "masterbate room").  
* I do not understand why the morning news readers at 93.8FM, in reporting the road traffic situation, must start off with "We have a traffic accident..." Who cares! Please report THE situations that the public wants to know, for example, "There is a traffic accident...".
* But, happily, I now hear on air fewer such redundancies as "12 noon" and "12 midnight".

I have a collection of printed stuff that should not have been allowed. Jargon like "take it to a new/higher/next level" (which level?)  or "going forward" (so? there was an option to go backwards?) keep popping up:

    

 

    

Old-time journalists like me would never have allowed "daylight robbery" or "broad daylight"!...

Someone needs to seriously explain to me what are "thought leaders" because it begs the question: what do you label those who are "benefiting" from the thoughtful pearls of wisdom being cast down:

It is all right to say existing laws, buildings, COE quotas, etc, because these can be made non-existent ie expunged, demolished, or altered. But you can't apply it as an adjective to people:

If these bondholders cease to exist, I doubt if they would care two hoots about getting any information updates! In this example above, existing is a redundancy and should have been excised.

Meanwhile, what the headline writer means here are "current owners"...

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The advertisements we are bombarded with are full of claims that play on impressive sounding words:

  
You can waterproof something but how exactly do you future-proof your organisation?...

...or the drainage network!

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If you managed to get through to the end of this laundry list, you'll probably be exhaustipated. That's the (made-up) word of the day: