Edwin Newman was a newscaster with NBC. Newman was very observant about speech, words and language. In 1974 he wrote a book entitled, “Strictly Speaking: Will America Be the Death of English?” Almost a decade later he wrote, “Civil Tongue.”
Strictly Speaking was a book I read when I was a high school senior. I had aspirations of being a writer and frequently read books about effective talking and writing. Newman was among the very first I heard discuss some of the stupid speech habits of English speaking people.
Business people – in fact, all people – seem to fall in love with phrases that sound good, but if we’d stop to think about them – even if for a moment – we’d realize they’re stupid. Some of them are really stupid. But the masses still consider them profound.
I’ve long been convinced that lemming-itis is rampant in America. Perhaps it is worldwide, but since I’m not a globe trotter I can’t confirm that. Daily I witness lemming behavior in offline and online situations. Mark Twain made a statement about this long before I was born, so I know modern technology has very little, if anything, to do with it. Hit PLAY and I’ll explain.
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