PLEASE, ESPN, BUY YOUR TENNIS COMMENTATORS AN “LY!”
I feel like I need to host the Wheel of Illiteracy! For a lot of people who don’t speak correctly. But for this fortnight, I’m concentrating on the ESPN tennis commentators. And on one particular thing they say wrong, just about all the time.
ESPN needs to buy their staff these flash cards by Twinkl!
Hence my grammar lesson for today is “Adverbs.” The category choice is because those tennis commentators obviously never heard of an “ly!” Seriously, how can they all leave those letters off every word that should definitely have them at the end???? They must have all been absent that day! And why is there not one person on the rest of the staff who’s intelligent enough to correct them??? Or at least read my tweets on the topic, and realize someone has to say something to them??? I honestly can’t understand it.
I was going to save this subject to include in my Wimbledon 2016 wrap-up, (which will have to wait over a week from the end of the tournament,) but their communal practice of leaving the “ly” off just about word that needs it has become even more like nails on a chalkboard to me, so here we are.
In case you don’t remember your “adverb” lessons yourself, here’s the very brief explanation: When verbs, such as “aggressive,” are used to describe how an action is performed, the suffix “ly” is added to the word, making it into “aggressively.”
Therefore, when you want to state how an athlete is playing tennis, (or any sport or game,) the correct term is that he or she is playing “aggressively.” Simple enough to understand and put into practice, right?
But these ESPN commentators do not get that very simple concept!!! How is that possible? Some of them even went to college! But they all speak like they didn’t even pass kindergarten!
Caroline Wozniacki. Photo by Karen Salkin.
Here are just a very few examples, with notes from me, from the past two weeks. (If I recorded them all, I wouldn’t have time to write anything else! And amusingly, my gmail kept trying to correct all of them when I sent this article to my proofreader!):
Perhaps the worst offender is Caroline Wozniacki. She does it all the time! One time, she referred to “the one who played more aggressive.”
“He played phenomenal,” as opposed to “phenomenally,” by Sam Querrey, who has many good things to say otherwise.
He also asked a player, “What could you have done different in this match?”
Chris Eubanks said, “He hit patient,” instead of the correct “patiently.”
He also exclaimed, “She played flawless.”
That one must have been catching, because even the young-ish play-by-play guy, Mike Monaco, said, “Wow—he played flawless.”
“What they’ve done so amazing throughout their careers is…,” said by the older, very wealthy, and usually well-spoken Jessica Pegula!!!
Here’s a brief chart to get you started.
There have been soooooooo many more of those, but it’s offending my ears to even just write them! But you get the picture.
What is wrong with these people? Don’t they hear themselves??? It’s like incorrect grammar is contagious!
Or does ESPN send out a memo to all of them to speak illiterately??? I don’t get how so many of them can be so stupid like that!
So, please anyone at ESPN, I beg of you to buy them all a whole bunch of “ly”s! If not for this final weekend of Wimbledon, then at least by next month’s US Open! If worst comes to worst, fly me out to hold a grammar seminar for your entire staff. I’ll do that for you guys happy! (I hope that you get that I really mean “happily!”)
