Saturday, December 13, 2008
Even More Word News: Devastated
Both Ed Stourton and Carol Vorderman are 'devastated'. People are always 'devastated' these days. I wonder why this word seems to be so necessary. 'Upset' is a bit weak, I suppose, and 'shocked' doesn't suggest any harm to the person. 'Violated' is, perhaps, a little intimate and 'depressed' carries overtones of mental illness. Personally, I'd go for 'pissed-off', it signals that your pride is intact and will make people want to buy you a drink. But, to be honest, if Ed and Carol want to feel 'devastated', well, so do I.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I suppose a 90% paycut from 1.5m would depend very much on how much one had in the bank. And then dictate the degree, from devastation onwards. Bereft, that would be my feeling. Giving the correct amount of temporary grief, but would get over it.
ReplyDeleteOTOH. That Riley woman, she'll do.
The other guy, I do not know
Gutted, Bryan, I'm totally gutted. Brassed off as well. And mortified. Flabbergasted too if I weren’t so shell-shocked. My world’s fallen apart, the ground’s slipped from beneath my feet, and I’m reeling. I really am. In fact, I’m speechless. There’s no other word for it. Except ‘stunned’. And ‘dumbstruck’. And ‘paralysed’. The whole town has been left paralysed by this tragedy. Whatever it was...
ReplyDeletesick as a parrot? maybe not...
ReplyDeletethey got rid of the wrong guy, surely
Pissed-off is a good one, with a fine line in English understatement in Mr Stourton's case considering that most people would be furious at such shabby treatment. He must feel as if he's had his arse handed to him on a plate but I don't expect that can be said on Radio 4.
ReplyDeleteI supposed the master of this art has to be Darth Vader. All you'd get would be a few sinister, heavy-breathed rasping sounds. You could decide this indicated that poor Darth was "devastated" and perhaps in need of counselling from HR, but you'd be wiser to leave town pronto.
Fine.
ReplyDeleteI'm not very interested in radio, but the BBC does seem to make a habit of this kind of hamfisted treatment of its more respectable presenters while propping up dickheads such as Jonathan Ross.
ReplyDelete