Sunday, April 3, 2011

RANT: A 'Perky' Economy?

A headline I recently saw on a newspaper placard whilst driving back from work here in Johannesburg:

"SA Economy Ahead Looks Perky"

Perky?!

I nearly drove into a lamppost as I fumed about that one.

How the hell can the economy of a country have a 'perky' outlook?!

Either the country's economy has a firm set of breasts, which I very much doubt, or this is one ridiculous (ab)use of a word.

According to dictionary.com:

perk·y /ˈpɜrki/


[pur-kee]
–adjective, perk·i·er, perk·i·est.

jaunty; cheerful; brisk; pert.

So, am I to assume that our local economy is 'jaunty', 'cheerful' and 'brisk'?

Was that the economy I saw walking happily down my street the other day, looking all perky? Jesus wept.

My hate for this type of 'creative' use of words knows no bounds. Yet I am assailed almost every day by newspaper and magazine editors/ writers/ pretentious twats who take words in the English language and then twist (read: defile, corrupt, mangle) them to suit their own lazy needs.

Oh, and by the way, the South African economy is anything but 'perky' at the moment. More like 'clunky'.

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