In a word

Greetings, friends.  Late afternoon post today, as I had some time and a couple of odd things on my mind...

Presidential candidate and Senator Marco Rubio got himself into some hot water during a debate Saturday night by repeating a portion of his stump speech in response to a question....three separate times. This made him look as though he cannot think on his feet, which he may or may not be able to do.

But what really got to me is the wording of his "rehearsed" comments, in which he said that it was time to "dispel with the notion that...."

Why did that bother me?  Well, if you look up the word "dispel," it means to "make disappear."  So one would "dispel a notion," not "dispel with a notion."  Not a big deal to most, but if one aspires to be President and is no more erudite than that, who's to say what else is lacking?  And, to be fair, he may not have written the line, which makes it all the worse, as that would imply that someone who is a professional speechwriter doesn't know the meaning of the word "dispel."

Oh, I'm not finished.

I travel regularly to Louisville, Kentucky from my home base in Lexington.  Along my path into Louisville I pass by an area that's rapidly developing with offices, businesses and recreation.  Not too long ago (before the holidays, anyway) a new multi-screen movie theater opened.  What's it called?

XScape

You are reading that correctly.  A business is so named for the common mispronunciation of the word "escape."  There may be reasons why this theater complex isn't called "Escape," and the owners may have wanted an "extreme" aspect to the name with this stylized misspelling.  But it engenders a level of stupidity in our society that I find disappointing in the least, and offensive after a fashion, too.

This all reminded me of someone in a very visible position whom we all watched and heard mispronounce a word repeatedly.  Recently I saw that former President George W. Bush will be campaigning for his brother, the former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.  Our former President was well known for turning the word "nuclear" into "new-cue-lar."  Over and over and over again.

These are not difficult words.  They're not the names of foreign heads of state whose native language is not English, mind you, these are words from the English language.  And this is not a regional-accent softening of a word like "working" into "workin'," either.

Rant over.  Thanks for listening!




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