“Famous,” Websters defines this word as:
1 a : widely known b : honored for achievement
2 : excellent, first-rate <famous weather for a walk>
“Infamous,” Websters defines this word as:
1 : having a reputation of the worst kind : notoriously evil <an infamous traitor>
2 : causing or bringing infamy : disgraceful <an infamous crime>
3 : convicted of an offense bringing infamy
Which word would you use to describe Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech?
On the Noon news on Channel 9, Natalie Pasquarella said with a smile on her face that today was the 46th anniversary of King’s “infamous” speech.
WTF? Infamous [see the above definition] isn’t a word that should be used to describe King’s speech.
Of course, you really can’t put all the blame on the air-headed anchorwoman because she didn’t write the script. But it seems as if she should’ve had sense enough to know that King’s speech is famous not infamous.
Infamous:
Someone at Channel 9 needs a thesaurus and a few more brain cells.
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 1, 2009.
Everyone has twisted MLK’s message over the years.
That is but one of the many errors that professional news readers make daily. The one that bothers me the most is their apparent inability to differentiate among past, present, and future tense.
Professional communicators do not understand the difference between less and fewer.
Then there is the failure to understand that 10 times larger and 10 times as much do not mean the same thing, and I have no idea what 10 times smaller means. Based on the context in which it is used I assume that they meant 1/10th the size.