Friday, January 07, 2005

The birth of a pet peeve

I was reading the letters in the Cincinnati Enquirer today, and I became so incensed I couldn't even finish - I had to come here immediately and blog out my rage.

The letters themselves are full of good points, until this sentence in the fourth letter:

"I consider it an affront to the integrity of professional football when the Philadelphia Eagles come here with a playoff birth sewed up and put on an exhibition game."

A playoff BIRTH? I've never heard of such a thing.

... Oh, unless you count the ENTIRE YEAR I spent battling this as news editor for my college paper, when the football team was on fire and almost every sports story included a summary of the different bowl "births" the Buckeyes could land. Will they get a "birth in" the Rose Bowl, the reporters wondered? And if they beat Michigan, they'll most definitely nab a "birth to" the national championship, right?

Wrong. Because a team that lands a spot in a playoff, bowl or other major sporting event does not have a "birth to" or a "birth in" the event. It has a BERTH in the event.

You know how you can tell which of these words is right and which is wrong? BECAUSE ONE MAKES SENSE AND THE OTHER DOESN'T!!!!

I know why it happens: sports writers hear sportscasters talking about "playoff berths," and their minds, which immediately visualize the word as the more-used "birth," construct an elaborate image of the victorious athletes being plunged into cleansing fire and emerging, phoenix-like, from the ashes of their former selves as a James Earl Jones voiceover booms: "Now ... you are playoff material."

It's lovely and poetic, I know. And to make my point, I could construct a similarly eloquent image of the weary team members questing for the playoffs and, once they achieve their goal, collapsing into their beds with tired smiles, knowing that they are finally able to rest, if only for a short time. (The beds are berths, doncha know.)

But I think instead I'll just point you to this site and let Messrs. Merriam and Webster do the talking. Pay particular attention to definition 4b.

Go forth now, and err no more. (Well, err a little, lest my job become unnecessary.)