Do Journalists Have No Shame?

No respect for our precious language? No reverence for holy things?

…If anyone uses the word ‘iconic’ in my presence–actual or virtual–to refer to anything other than that which pertains to AN ICON…

…he will receive a clerical beat-down that he will NEVER forget!

Please! Let’s have some restraint here. Words have actual meanings, people. They resemble tortilla chips at a cocktail party: No double-dipping! Use them to mean what they mean, and only what they mean, please!

One uses the word iconic PREPOSTEROUSLY when qualifying a bike design, Ralph Mooney’s steel guitar, a radio tower, a 747, or a wine label logo. I could go on and on and on. Journalists use the word ‘iconic’ even more often than they use the passive voice and almost as often as the verb ‘to be.’

May the Lord preserve us. Allow me to recommend George Orwell’s 1984 as a cautionary tale.