NPR foul?: excessive use of vocabulary
Should we have a foul for NPR commentators? Interviewees? "Excessive use of vocabulary" - for when the speaker makes ostentatious use of his/her prodigious vocabulary in such a manner that even the average NPR listener rolls eyes and groans.
Seriously! I was listening to All Things Considered last night as I was washing Brin and Debbie Elliott was interviewing a guy who was reviewing a new biography of Jerome Robbins. The reviewer said (and I quote) that Robbins was "an incredible auto-didact" who 'taught himself to read Russian so he could read Russian novels' in the original language. Now it seems to me that if you have to define the word immediately after using it that you maybe shouldn't have used it to begin with!
Seriously! I was listening to All Things Considered last night as I was washing Brin and Debbie Elliott was interviewing a guy who was reviewing a new biography of Jerome Robbins. The reviewer said (and I quote) that Robbins was "an incredible auto-didact" who 'taught himself to read Russian so he could read Russian novels' in the original language. Now it seems to me that if you have to define the word immediately after using it that you maybe shouldn't have used it to begin with!