At first I intended to post a simple rant, possibly an admonition, against a phrase I hear misused all the time. I deflated after a Google news search pulled the phrase up as early as 1894 and included about five million hits. About four million hits appear in this new millennium alone. The peak for the phrase comes in July 2009, about 3.5 million hits!
Why such a distinctive spike in data? I don't know, ask Malcolm Gladwell. Just a Google search can't be definitive. But hey, pull that data together with all the anecdotal tales of the phrasal offense, and we've got a case for petitioning the public speakers of the world to put a stop to this.
NPR copywriters, Obama speech writers, news reporters, just quit it. You've offended an otherwise cool-headed copyeditor. The next time you're writing or speaking about a wide range, it better be the Himalaya or some such, not just choices for fresh-baked pies. Sheesh.
Observe:
"Hey Jackson, what'dya want to do today?"
"Oh, I don't know, Skip. Boy, there sure is a wide range of great stuff to do."
Ludicrous, right? Leave your own, in comments.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, a variety will suffice. I don't think I want to make the effort to consider a wide variety all the time.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
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