If you heard some unexplained cheering on the evening of May 10, that was my voice. I was reading the post by my fellow ChicagoNow blogger, The Amused Curmudgeon, headlined ‘Airing My Gripes About Arrantly-Erring On-Air Language.”

I was delighted to see “overturned meanings,” “the unlikeable like” and other pet peeves among my fellow writer’s catches. Since I could not manage to comment directly on the post — a problem worth its own post someday — a reply here seems to be in order.

Do people not realize that learning the language isn’t just for passing tests? It’s for communicating. Once I’ve learned something, I enjoy talking to someone else who has learned it. I’m confident that The Amused Curmudgeon and I would have a lovely conversation and enjoy one another’s vocabulary.

But with some words, I find myself thinking of the French tourists I used to meet when I worked at museums — the ones who would be so relieved to hear a sentence they could understand.

One of my favorite furies, to use William Safire’s variation on “pet peeve,” is hearing sloppy pronunciation in a radio chat, then having the sloppy person say “Oh, you know!” No, I don’t. Being specific, in this case, is being pacific — using exact diction pacifies (calms) your audience.

Midwestern accents are not the easiest to understand, even for natives. Another word that leaves me peeved is what you might call the U.S. word for a looking-glass, a mirror. An insignificant one, a mere mirror, would be hard for many Illinoisans to talk about — most of us do not take care to put the correct two syllables into “mirror.”

Being careful with your speech can have the sense of taking care of the language. Like the Curmudgeon himself, I enjoy thinking of my teachers — and two of my stronger ones were my parents. My father, who taught physics, would still be amazed over our family’s dinners by students who asked “Does spelling count on the test (or in the lab notebook, as the day went)?”

“It will count if you want me to understand what you’re writing!” Dad would say — in class, and again at the dinner table.

Meanwhile, my mother taught home economics when I was younger, changing to child development when I was in high school. Her influence on my speech was more in the “Be ladylike” vein — speak clearly, explain things well, be kind.

When it comes to the latter two items, I must gently disagree with The Amused Curmudgeon’s use of adjectives at the beginning of sentences. His “sadly” and “mournfully” look to me more like stage directions — he’s setting the tone for the next comment. But usage has evolved (no, devolved) to the point that “I sadly observe” or “I mournfully report” does not fit the voice of many writers.

I am glad, for his sake, that the curmudgeon was not riding on the bus I rode last week, on which a fellow rider used “the unlikeable like” every three or four words: “She was, like, saying what she thought was, like, important or something.” Since I didn’t hear a reply, I take it she was on a phone. My own voice stayed silent, but I was very tempted to tell her that I did not like hers one bit. Luckily for us both, my mother’s training held.

So The Amused Curmudgeon’s writing voice is a clear one, and I commend it to your attention if you’re looking to expand your reading on ChicagoNow.

To the curmudgeon himself, I can only add my thanks.

I admit it. I’m about as linguistically conservative as I am politically progressive. And that’s, in a word, Quite. A dictionary of descriptive bent has never even faintly bent a bookshelf of mine. Unabridged descriptive dictionaries, on the other hand, have threatened to swayback a shelf or two.

I’m particularly jolted by a sting of anguish and sent to muttering invectives when I witness linguistic transgressions issuing from the larynxes of far too manyfolks who speak the mother tongue for a living. Yes, I’m referring to the purveyors of information via broadcast media. Sometimes the peccadillo is a breach of a rule I learned in elementary school, but is currently on life support. Other times it’s a existing rule that’s being stretched, tortured or slaughtered.

You know what’s coming , don’t you? Of course you do. So without further doo-doo, I present–in no discernible order– the ineluctable List:

. The As/Like Confusion: My Von Humboldt-school teacher, Miss Prendergast, was adamantly precise about when to use “as” and when to use “like.’ The times my ears have been scalded by “like I said“, rather than “as I said”, are painfully countless.

. Usurping the Single With the Singularly Plural : The most blazing example of a plural disgracefully supplanting a singular–“criteria”, rather than “criterion“–comes in bulk quantities. A close second? “Data” as a singular. True story: Years ago, during a ad agency/client presentation, I cringed as I suffered through my media director (!) referring to television, radio and print as “mediums.” Seance to follow, I wondered?

. Interspersing the Unlikeable “Like”: Must we continue to so abundantly endure the word “like” irrationally flecking (and staining) pronouncements heard on the air? For the past forty years or so, few under forty seem unable to make any firm declaration.

. Overly Overturned Meanings: In more prosperous times for our idiom, following were words that had not yet been disfigured.

At one time, the word “perusal” meant glancing through, as distinguished from scrutinize. Today, you can take your pick. It seems to have morphed into meanings that blatantly oppose each other.

In the past, the word “disinterested” meant impartial as opposed to not interested. Today , the brazen clash has descended into puzzling acceptability. The definitions have seemingly been left to joust with each other for clarity.

Semantically speaking, the meaning of the word “oxymoron” shades toward intentionally contradictory figurative speech, such as, for instance, “loud silence.” It’s now been diluted to also refer to unintentional contradiction, such as the commonly noted “military intelligence” which should be simply defined as–you guessed it–contradiction.

Miss Prendergast was clear about the More/ Other distinction at the tail of verbal lists. Mournfully, her directive has been virtually demolished. Her now-ignored dictum: When listing multiple nouns with parallel identity, the word “others‘ must be used. Such as: “Performing tonight will be Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Mandy Patinkin, Tony Bennett and others.…. not and more! Sadly, in contemporary argot “and more” is used unfailingly and –according to my late English mentor–improperly. “And more‘ should be used only in disjointed lists, such as “featured at tonight festivities will be Beyonce, Lady Gaga, a delicious buffet, games, prizes and more“.

Somehow the word couple lost its way and moldered into also meaning fewor several. Since then, millions have become confused, disappointed and and vexed when “couple of hours” turned into half a day. Think about this. Have a strolling spousal pair every been described by onlookers as anything but a “married couple? No, not even if they were known bigamists,

The above category of oral atrocities leads seamlessly into a close cousin: Cognitive Dissonance. Hammered at us by those incessantly dull, cloyingly ubiquitous, unimaginably unimaginative Fisher Investment commercials is a cavalcade of actual Fisher counselors caviling against “cookie-cutter portfolios”. Trouble is, every Fisher script they parrot is, yes, identical; in other words, cookie cutter. Sump’n smells fishy at Fisher, eh?

That’s it. I’m done. I’m in need of some fresh, like, air.

First-year Eastern Illinois head coach Chris Wilkerson saw his potential quarterback of the future at the April 23 spring game. However, the aforementioned QB never suited up for the Panthers that warm and windy afternoon.

Jeff Undercuffler, the former University of Albany quarterback who announced he had entered the transfer portal Dec. 17, was present — along with three other potential transfers — at O’Brien Field in Charleston April 23 and tweeted this photo that day.

Just after midday on Tuesday, Undercuffler tweeted an image of a panther, which happens to be EIU’s mascot. Moreover, EIU offensive coordinator Joe Davis was Undercuffler’s OC at Albany, where Undercuffler passed for an FCS-high 41 TDs in 2019.

National FCS analyst Craig Haley confirmed Tuesday with Prairie State Pigskin that Undercuffler had committed to Eastern Illinois.

Haley also wrote that Undercuffler’s 41 TD passes in 2019 “were the most in subdivision history by a freshman (he was a redshirt freshman). He’s passed for 6,406 yards and 59 TDs in 31 career games.”

Wilkerson, a former EIU player and assistant coach under Panther legend Bob Spoo, was hired as his alma mater’s head coach in late January.

Undercuffler, listed at 6-foot-5 and 231 pounds by Albany, played in three games before being injured in 2021. He completed 62-of-113 passes for 556 yards in those games.

Undercuffler is a redshirt junior with two years of eligibility remaining. He is a native of Burlington, N.J. and prepped at Holy Cross Academy where competed in football, basketball and baseball.

Prior to adding Undercuffler, the Panthers listed four quarterbacks on their roster: transfers Ira Armstead II (Virginia) and Jonah O’Brien (Colorado State) along with redshirt freshman Zach Weir and incoming freshman Kevin Conway.

“We have told the quarterbacks all spring that nothing will be set in stone or in concrete as a result of just this spring. We’re working on trying to improve every single day,” Wilkerson told Prairie State Pigskin April 23 following the annual spring game.

Weir is the lone returnee to have thrown passes in games at EIU. The Grafton, Wisc. product completed 32-of-66 throws in 2021. He had one touchdown and was intercepted four times.

Interestingly, O’Brien has returned to EIU after a stint at Colorado State. O’Brien, a redshirt sophomore from Bartlett, began 2019 as the EIU scout team quarterback but played the final home game of the season against Southeast Missouri , completing 12-of-21 pass attempts for 84 yards and one interception.

Armstead II, a South Bend, Ind. native, is a dual-threat option. A former three-star recruit by ESPN.com and 247sports.com, the sophomore is listed at 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds.

Following the spring game, Wilkerson was asked what the next month would look like in regard to EIU’s roster.

“There are still some pieces that will potentially accentuate our roster, but the core group of our individuals, the nucleus of our ’22 football team, is assembled now,” Wilkerson said.

It appears Jeff Undercuffler is one of those accentuation pieces.