Opinion: Calling the language police


Operation Weed and Seed seems like a good fit for both Henderson and the Vance Organization to Implement Community Excellence, and we look forward to hearing more about the local effort to choose an area, identify the needs and develop a strong enough strategy to win the federal designation.

But we have a quibble: the program’s use of the term “safe haven.”

To us, safe haven is one of the great redundancies in modern America. Look it up: A haven, by definition, is a safe place. A safe haven, therefore, is a safe safe place.

We’re sure this messy construction grew out of a combination of safe harbor with haven. It’s understandable, but it’s wrong. And it’s just sad that a redundancy should grow into a cliche, as safe haven has.

We don’t expect the federal government to stamp out poor language use in America; the government is far too intrusive already. But is it too much to ask that the government not feed the beast of bad language?

We don’t care whether it’s a haven or a safe harbor, but in this era of federal education programs that cost hundreds of billions of dollars per year, we’d love for the government at least to try to provide us shelter from stupid word choices.

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