I had the 'mis-fortune' (pun intended) to stumble across a repeat programme being shown at stupid o'clock in the morning. It was Stacey Solomon and her clan versus some bloke from Emmerdale, whose team scored just a few points after winning just one round. In the round-up at the end of the show, Vernon Kay described their efforts in all seriousness as "awesome", and never has a better example arisen to show how overused and misused this word is.
In speaking to the Emmerdale chap, to pad out the show and waste time, Vernon suggested to him that he was very "family oriented". This may well be perfectly acceptable in the USA, and most probably Canada as well, Vernon, but you are fucking British and a highly (over-) paid presenter; please in future use the correct term - 'family orientated'. Globalisation is not an excuse for people to give up on things and opt for either whatever they like, or more often, the easiest/laziest/shortest way of saying something.
The last question on the show was to find the top answers to the question:
"What is another word for intelligent?"
After revealing 'Bright', 'Brainy', 'Smart' and 'Clever', the Emmerdale family was stumpted and it passed to the Solomons to try and come up with the one missing word suggested by respondents in the survey. Stacey's sister suggested "Intellectual" and I thought that this was a good choice for the fifth and least popular answer, behind the aforementioned four words. Vernon moved along the line and was met with multiple suggestions of "Genius" from family members. That's what they all decided upon as the answer, and they were duly disappointed when it was wrong - and the missing word was 'Intellectual'. It was a fitting subject/theme for the programme, as none of the Solomon family (excluding Stacey's sister) can have any claim to intellectuality. If these were supposed to be alternatives to 'Intelligent' (an ADJECTIVE) and the four answers revealed were of course all ADJECTIVES, why the fuck did this mob then elect to choose 'Genius' as another word for 'Intelligent'? I reckon simply because of the way they all talk, and their understanding of grammar is shit. The dumbed down world in which we now live means it's apparently acceptable to describe someone by saying: "He's really genious". Actually, they probably all say "He's real genius" and it's no doubt this level of ignorance that meant the faux pas by the Solomons was forthcoming.
Is it the case, I wonder, that contestants on a show are deemed more worthy if they are not intelligent? TV generally endorses stupidity to gain laughs, and contributes massively to the decline in standards. Not content with their chosen hosts being unable to speak properly, channels now search high and low for misfits and idiots to fill the schedules, and promote the lowest levels of just about anything one can measure.
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