There is an episode of the 'new' Twilight Zone in which a salesman wakes up one morning to discover that everyone in his life is suddenly speaking an altered version of English. A colleague invites him out to "dinosaur," he overhears someone saying "you can't teach an old dog new trumpets." He descends into a hellish world in which he can't understand a thing anyone says to him. I am that salesman.
For as long as I can remember, people would always say "make a decision." Yet for at least a year I have been hearing people say "take a decision." At first it was only the odd news report, the occasional confused politician. Now, it seems, it is everywhere. I haven't heard a single broadcaster on Radio National say anything other than "take a decision" for months.
The requisite Google search informs me that this is generally considered 'correct' English whereas 'make a decision' is an Americanism. Further, it is considered particularly correct because one only chooses from an existing set of decisions; one does not create or make a decision. Others argue that because there is not yet a "decision-taking process" in common parlance that it is clearly better to say "make a decision." I'm an ol' fashioned gal but I find this hard to adjust to and I am particularly perplexed by its sudden dominance. Surely I'm not the only one?
Narrator: A question trembles in the silence: Why did this remarkable thing happen to this perfectly ordinary man? It may not matter why the world shifted so drastically for him. Existence is slippery at the best of times. What does matter is that Bill Lowery isn't ordinary. He's one of us. A man determined to prevail in the world that was, and the world that is, or the world that will be. In the Twilight Zone.
For as long as I can remember, people would always say "make a decision." Yet for at least a year I have been hearing people say "take a decision." At first it was only the odd news report, the occasional confused politician. Now, it seems, it is everywhere. I haven't heard a single broadcaster on Radio National say anything other than "take a decision" for months.
The requisite Google search informs me that this is generally considered 'correct' English whereas 'make a decision' is an Americanism. Further, it is considered particularly correct because one only chooses from an existing set of decisions; one does not create or make a decision. Others argue that because there is not yet a "decision-taking process" in common parlance that it is clearly better to say "make a decision." I'm an ol' fashioned gal but I find this hard to adjust to and I am particularly perplexed by its sudden dominance. Surely I'm not the only one?
Narrator: A question trembles in the silence: Why did this remarkable thing happen to this perfectly ordinary man? It may not matter why the world shifted so drastically for him. Existence is slippery at the best of times. What does matter is that Bill Lowery isn't ordinary. He's one of us. A man determined to prevail in the world that was, and the world that is, or the world that will be. In the Twilight Zone.
4 comments:
Hmmm... a receptive aphasia.
In other related news, I am hearing many 'weirdities' of the English language. Two biggies are:
'Stop hating on [insert name here]'
(I've seen very few people actually hate on someone before, although when it happens it's pretty entertaining.)
'I've got a couple things to do'
(This one just bugs me that people don't use 'of' anymore. Two-letter word people. Not hard. Use it.)
And now I'm off. I have a couple of things to do around the house.
Oh, and the twilight zone man may have just had a stroke. A very minor stroke which zoned in on one area of his brain only (Wernicke's region, the first gyrus of the temporal lobe, most likely on the left side- just in case you were interested).
It's 'Make a decision'. I don't give a flying fig what everyone else says. I'm right.
And I HATE 'hating on..../crushing on.....' etc. In fact, I just hate everyone who doesn't use my vernacular:-)
Somehow I missed your comments my dear fellow "decision MAKERS".
Creamboy, your examples have sent me gasping for my beta blockers. Please tell me that the use of "of" in sentences such as: "get your pay off of the boss" hasn't resulted in a world-wide shortage of "of's" such that they are now to be used sparingly??
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