It is probable that you are a normal person. Considering that you are reading a blog post about English language usage, maybe you have taken some language arts classes or maybe you were even an English major in college. I was not. In any case, chances are very good that you are not a writer for television. And that’s fine! Few of us are. This blog post is not directed at you.
But to you television and movie writers (especially those in the science fiction genre), I have this to say:
IT IS YOUR PAID JOB TO BE A KNOWLEDGEABLE WRITER. WOULD IT KILL YOU TO USE THE PROPER FORM OF MILLENNIUM? Sheesh!
If I fall into any grammar camp, it is definitely descriptivism, but COME ON. Television writers are paid to write. I can forgive an idiotic “honest to blog” as a sign of the times, but when writers for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine write,”Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago,” what am I supposed to think? These are writers who were educated and actually wrote before the advent of the Popular Internet. They were supposed to be the asshole writers! They were the ones who were supposed to be picking all the goddamn nits and judging others for misspelling words and splitting infinitives.* And here I am, in 2010, with every teen boy who has just been dumped starting a blog, trying to set some sort of usage example. YOU ARE UNDERMINING ME.
Let me be clear: I really do tend towards descriptivism. If “millennia” is now the way we’re all saying “millennium,” fine. I don’t like it; I am just one (grumpy) man. But be consistent! Let the change come from mass incorrectness due to an acrane confusion, not because “a millennium” sounds–less badass? “A millennim” sounds baddass, guys; and Worf needs to be badass.
*Ironic choice of grammar example was intentional.
I’m irritated whenever Latin plurals are misused or mispronounced. Get your Rome on, jerks! Millenium/a, just a special case of this
I think we can be descriptivists and still look down our long pointy noses at hoi polloi who say “the hoi polloi” and who say “alumni” alumnEYE!