http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/04/04/weather/index.html?source=newsletter

For all the time they waste on the air, weather forecasters all over the country are failing to report the biggest weather story of all: global warming.

I can’t get back to yourself, buddy. Only you can do that. I’ll get back to you, but not yourself. Is “me” just too remedial a word to use in the workplace? If you get back to myself, instead of getting back to me, am I more important? Argh. One of those verbal assails that might possibly drive me right out of my mind.

Right along with “hours,” that use of “myself” is merely a way to inflate speech to simply take up more space, under the guise that somehow that makes it - or the speaker - more important. The meteorologist must matter more if s/he takes up that much air time. The boss’ six-figure salary must be justified if simply identifying him requires an extra syllable than the average employee.

Butchering our language has become almost commonplace - if we aren’t grammatically incorrect or inflated beyond recognition, we are misusing words under the guise of euphemistic . . . kindness? I read something not long ago about the word “issue,” how individuals no longer have problems in our culture, but issues. Our children have learning issues, we have marital issues, we have medical issues.

Good thing we no longer have problems, because if we did, we’d have to solve them. With an issue, we can just excuse every negative thing that happens by pointing to our issues. Problems require solutions. Issues only require recognition. If we know what our issues are, we can try to work around them. Which is fine, except issues never go away. With the identification of a problem and some direct work toward a solution, we could solve the silly thing and make the problem go away. No more issues!

Which is why, of course, I have issues with the misuse of language. Big issues. Which explains my crankiness. Don’t go expecting me to solve it.

Actually, I’m guessing the reason the weather consumes much time is because it’s an easy way for the TV station to fill air time every day — the same reason they cover so many obscure local sporting events. Every news program needs to fill 30 minutes of air time, but investigating and reporting about real stories costs money, so the easiest and (more importantly) the most reliable way to fill the daily pipeline is with guaranteed daily information.

Lest anyone think I’m letting meteorologists off the hook, I have my own beef with them: verbosity. Specifically, why do TV weather forecasters insert the word “hours” into every sentence? “Morning” has become “the morning hours,” “afternoon” has become “the afternoon hours,” “noon” has become “the noontime hour,” and on and on it goes. One forecaster where I live even turned “sunrise” into “the sunrise hour.” Another one first turned “overnight” into “the overnight hours,” and then bastardized that phrase into “THE overnight.” So, instead of having “rain tonight followed by sunshine tomorrow morning,” we get “rain in the overnight followed by sun during the sunrise hour.” Unfortunately, this bad habit seems to be highly contagious, so if meteorologists in your city aren’t doing this yet, they probably soon will be. Anything to fill air time.