Tuition (Photo – graphic by Kat Bailey, U.S. A.F.)
It always irritates me when I read colleges announcing that ‘tuition will increase by 10 percent next year.’ It’s not just the money, though certainly that’s ruinous.
By Reg Green
My specific complaint is that it’s one more step in the debasement of our language.
A 10 percent increase in tuition should make you 10 percent more knowledgeable. What they mean is “tuition costs will increase 10 percent.” And these are the people we naively expect to teach our children to write and speak accurately. It’s impossible to change, of course: the phrase is too ingrained.
But before another expression gets similarly accepted can we please stop people who’ve applied for unemployment benefit being described as “filing for unemployment”? They already have unemployment: what they are filing for is the money.
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