‘Arsonated’ (From Cotswold Journal)

‘Arsonated’

2:00pm Friday 3rd August 2012 in Letters

WHAT is it about people today who insist on abusing the English language instead of using it?

I read in last week’s Journal of a hut being “torched”. Surely saying “set fire to” is more appropriate or perhaps it should be “arsonated”?

I also read a statement made by a US (who else?) statesman of an occurance having “an impact” on some future subject. Surely it should be “affecting” which, at least, enables the level of “impact” to be stated?

On a related subject, is phonetic pronunciation no longer taught in our primary schools?

Whatever happened to the use of the letters ‘t’ and ‘s’ etc, not being pronounced by people (and not just youngsters) today where words are spoken omitting the ultimate and sometimes the penultimate letters of words? Are they really taught that “th ca sa on th ma”?

VICTOR CANNINGS, Sedgeberrow