Every now and then, a particular word strikes me as ugly, or redundant, or useless, or sometimes all three, and then I get cranky for a day or so. The last word to provoke this response from me was “liaised.”
This morning I have a new one: “surveilled”. As in a CNN story this morning on possible dirty money in the (rap) recording business in New York: “…an individual was surveilled and videotaped…”
Okay, okay, it’s a predictable back-formation. But why this passion for using the amputated, still-bleeding stump of a longer word when a shorter, older, whole one would do? How about “watched”? “Followed”? Or even “trailed” or “shadowed”? …Or are those in some way too loaded / connoted for an “official” source trying to sound just as serious and important as it can?
(mutter) All right, maybe I just need more caffeine. Or I’m too much of a purist. I still think it’s ugly.
