More Evidence Suggesting That Even Reading News Can Make One Stupid

From an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article in 2009 that I ran across looking for something else,

“Sometimes called the ‘silent epidemic’ because it can manifest itself in a victim for decades without showing any symptoms, hepatitis C has become better known publicly in recent years.”

Oh, really?

man·i·fest
[man-uh-fest]
–adjective
1. readily perceived by the eye or the understanding; evident; obvious; apparent; plain: a manifest error. . .

–verb (used with object)
3. to make clear or evident to the eye or the understanding; show plainly: He manifested his approval with a hearty laugh.
4. to prove; put beyond doubt or question: The evidence manifests the guilt of the defendant. . .

—Synonyms
1. clear, distinct, unmistakable, patent, open, palpable, visible, conspicuous. 3. reveal, disclose, evince, evidence, demonstrate, declare, express. See display.

—Antonyms
1. obscure. 3. conceal.

A thing cannot be “manifest” while not “showing any symptoms”. It’s just not possible. What the idiot who wrote the sentence above apparently meant was something like, “Sometimes called the ‘silent epidemic’ because it can remain hidden in a victim for decades without showing any symptoms,” but that’s an unnecessarily cumbersome and excessively wordy way of saying simply, “Sometimes called the ‘silent epidemic’ because those infected often show no symptoms for decades. . .”

But, of course, the subliterate idiot who wrote the article (and his editor) apparently don’t know the meanings of the words they use, so they “misunderedumacate” their (also likely subliterate) readers.

And no, it’s not comforting to know that major newsrags are populated with “reporters” who are no more literate than those who write for America’s Third World County’s weekly birdcage liner.

With crooks like this (yeh, taking pay as a wordsmith for subliterate screeds is theft, IMO) populating so-called journalism–and they’re prevalent in all the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind–such crap polluting public discourse seems designed to bring literacy down to the lowest common denominator. And that feeds right in to my blog’s header quote…

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