>Woman to man this evening, overheard as I’m jogging by: “Your English skills are deplorable.”
About Roger SuttonRoger Sutton has been the editor in chief of The Horn Book, Inc, since 1996. He was previously editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and a children's and young adult librarian. He received his M.A. in library science from the University of Chicago in 1982 and a B.A. from Pitzer College in 1978. Follow him on Twitter: @RogerReads.
>I’ll bite. Anonymously. I see the rudeness, but where’s the irony? Is there a usage error? My dictionary says: deplorable, adjective, deserving strong condemnation.
>Well, my point was that you probably wouldn’t use an SAT word like deplorable to tell someone his English wasn’t good.
>RS has missed her point. She isn’t misusing the word – she wants to hurt him by criticizing something which she knows he takes pride in: his usage.
>I think Anonymous has missed MY point and is reading more into this overheard exchange than we possibly can. (And so may I be.)
>Ah, I get it.
Maybe his vocabulary is excellent even though his usage is deplorable?
Let’s move on.
>I don’t think of “deplorable” as an SAT word. My kids would use it.
>Dude, sign my kids up for whatever her kids are having.
My kids would use it.