03/10/2023
By Kate Stone Lombardi
The Grammar Police lists the following offenders, recently sighted in our area. Please note: we are desperate to stop these bad actors before they become repeat offenders:
“Let’s not problematize this thing.”
Clear violation -“problem” is not and never will be (at least on my watch) a verb.
“People come to Florida to recreate.”
Unless people are heading to the sunshine state to recreate in the literal sense, i.e. they will recreate the world, then NO, NO, NO. Again, “recreation” is a noun, not a verb.
“We need to be planful about this.”
I’m sorry, what? Do we need to make a plan? To plan carefully? To keep our original plans in mind? “Plan” is both a verb and a noun, but it is most certainly not an adverb!
“He hopes to reduce the deficit bigly.”
It is with sorrow that I report hearing this phrase on NPR just yesterday in a discussion about the federal budget. Bigly? It’s official – the world is coming to an end. In a very bigly way.