ill literacy

[calimac]

So last week I wrote about the closed-captioning that gave us titles like Adipose Wrecks, and today I open my local newspaper and what do I see? Two articles on the front page.

1. Fears that amateur fireworks displays will set off wildfires in our drought-stricken landscape. Such fireworks are illegal, "but that has done little to stop their rising use in the days leading up to a crescendo on the Fourth of July."
Crescendo - that's a technical term. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

2. Prospective candidates for the gubernatorial recall election are facing a new law: it requires them to submit five years of tax returns. (A law originally aimed at DT, but ruled ineligible for presidential elections, it lives on gubernatorially.) This is a rare provision: "Vermont is one of the only other states that has something similar."
"One of the only"? What does that mean, "one of the only"? It sounds as if you started to say "one of the few" and then changed your mind to "the only." Which is it?

Comments

[wild_patience]

Sadly, that is too common nowadays (the crescendo thing). I saw it on a web site almost 20 years ago and I emailed the writer. He claimed that the dictionary backed him up (as being synonymous with climax). It still irritates me every time I see it misused.