Double whammy?

I don't think so!!

We wouldn’t be human if we weren’t annoyed by something trivial. Given a writer’s toolset is language — and given language permeates pretty much every aspect of our lives — it would be remarkable if a wordsmith didn’t have ‘pet hates’. For example, some common ones:

• the needless and meaningless insertion of ‘like’ into the middle of sentences when people need to give their brains a chance to catch up with their mouths;

• the increasing trend for people to use ‘amount’ when they should be using ‘number’ (e.g. “number of times” not “amount of times”);

• the general misuse of the apostrophe when it comes to identifying the possessive — or not e.g. (“renovator of building’s.” … renovator of building’s what?)

The reason for all this nonsense? Is it laziness, ignorance, cultural pressure, social media, a failing education system…? I suspect a combination, don’t you?

One minor pet hate of mine is corruption of the phrase ‘double whammy’. When this was first introduced into our lexicon it meant “two bad things happening to you at the same time or in close proximity” — or something like that e.g. you fell over in the street and both tore your trousers and cut your knee — though usually the incidents associated with a ‘double whammy’ were more serious than that!

Nowadays ‘double whammy’ is coming to mean any two things happening in close proximity whether bad or not. In the UK there’s a daytime TV programme called Bargain Hunt in which contestants face two challenges: buy something that meets a certain criteria (e.g. must be made of silver), and secondly spend £75 or more on one item. Often contestants fulfil both challenges in one purchase — e.g. a silver teapot costing £100 — and, almost invariably, when they do their achievement is described as “a double whammy”. But it isn’t!

Language being the living thing it is, public misuse such as this will — as with ‘like’, ‘amount’ and the apostrophe — permeate and change the landscape of our language. Call me a grammar fascist but, like, I think those effect’s can often, like, be detrimental — if not downright ‘wrong’, like...

Anyway, that rant’s just a diversion really. I merely wanted to acknowledge two good things that happened to me yesterday.

First was my public reading in Market Rasen. A small audience, but one which allowed me to flex what I read to suit them, and which meant we could chat meaningfully between the pieces. It was a really pleasant hour; I think the attendees enjoyed the session.

Second was the Poetry Society Stanza Group I have been charing for over 6 years now. The quality of work we share is usually of a really high standard, and one of the nicest things about the group is that we often use our work as a springboard into broader discussions on the craft of writing. Yesterday it was the proliferation of ‘I/me’ poems, and talking about when they did — or did not — work. Insightful stuff.

Two really nice events on the same day.

But a ‘double whammy’? I think not!

---