If the purpose of language is to make humans understand each other, why can’t I understand what Sarah Palin and Barbara Perez are saying? After eight years of hearing George W. Bush dismantle the English language with such memorable quotes as, “rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”, I thought for sure the spoken word would regain its respectful place in the world. Little did any of us know that the acceptance of fractured language would be further advanced by still another word-challenged politician.

Former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s farewell speech to her constituents after quitting the governorship of Alaska last month left me wondering about the future of proper language usage in this country. Palin’s speech was so utterly incomprehensible, I felt compelled to read the entire transcript hoping the written words would shed a little light on what she was trying to say. Wrong.

Among the jumbled words spoken by Palin were the following: “And first, some straight talk for some, just some in the media because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you all have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting power to influence.”

Huh?

Palin was attempting to make a point about the way the news media does its job, but her message was completely muddled by her poor use of the English language. Amazingly, many Palin supporters listened to her speech and understood every word perfectly. I’m reminded of the time many years ago when my toddler son informed us he wanted to go to “weh und wad wa wa woo.” I turned to my older son sitting next to us and asked him for a translation. “He says he wants to go to Wet and Wild Water World.”

Surely, I’m missing something here. I don’t think the answer is to lower ourselves to the same level of those who have yet to master the basic rules of our language.

What’s more disturbing is poor language use among media professionals who make their living communicating their thoughts to other people. Hardly a day goes by when you don‘t hear someone on the radio engaging in a level of language destruction worthy of a place right alongside Sarah Palin and George W Bush.

Here’s part of a discussion on health care I heard on KHRO radio’s Barbara Perez Show recently:

“That’s gotta be the scariest feeling in the world is to know that someone in your family has cancer or someone close to you or you , like you with your heart problems had you not had your VA or things like this people having to mortgage your homes and then lose their homes to some hospital industry out there cause you can’t pay your bills and you‘re out on the street. ”

Many of us in the media can be accused of an occasional grammatical slip up and I will concede that the spoken word sometimes bears little resemblance to the written word. But articulation of thought is important. To our collective detriment, bad grammar and poor use of language has become so pervasive it is not surprising many of us are left dumbfounded and confused.

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Roy Ortega is a journalist with more than 30 years in the television, print and online news business. He can be reached at rortega54@elp.rr.com.