If a chair starts telling you what to do, get help

For the past two weeks, I have complained about this and that. Now I'm griping about words we confuse, misuse, abuse and chartreuse. (OK, you caught me; that last one is a color and not a verb, but it just means I'm the very sort of person I'm complaining about here.)

Obviously, we all make mistakes in speaking and writing, but a sentence that is published or broadcast should have been checked for stupidity. Here are some examples that I keep reading and hearing anyway:

- Chair: Not a chair you sit on, but a dignified position you hold. Occupying that chair, you become the "chairman," or, if you lean that way, "chairwoman." There is no dishonor in being a man or a woman. Was it Chair Mao? No, it was Chairman Mao, and if it's good enough for a world leader, it's good enough for me. Hear that, National Public Radio?

- Proactive: What began as a psychiatric term for the opposite of "reactive" behavior has become useless if you're not on the couch. You say you want to "be proactive" on losing weight? Here's a tip: Just do it. Then you can lose three syllables along with those pounds.

- Multiple: Another waste of breath. If the newscast says that police found "multiple bullet holes" in a man's back, is he more deader (you know what I mean) than he would have been with "several bullet holes," "numerous bullet holes" or, for that matter, simply "bullet holes"?

- Currently: My TV told me that Benedict XVI is "currently" the pope. Is that a publicly elected job now? In such cases, "currently" is as redundant as "multiple" and "proactive."

- Myriad: This is a perfectly fine word -- when used properly. Given enough time, I could cite myriad examples. Not "a myriad of examples," as we often hear. You wouldn't say "a 10,000 of examples," would you? See, that's what "myriad" literally means: "10,000." I think it's lovely that there's such a term.

- Literally: I used this word in the previous paragraph, but not in the same way I heard it in a news report out of Washington. A congressman argued that a war budget bill would "make our soldiers literally have to fight with one hand held behind their backs." I was literally floored, and when I got up again, I wondered whether he meant "figuratively." I hope so, because we should support the troops, not disable them.

- Lay/lie: Nobody seems to know the difference between these two verbs -- even educated people on TV and radio -- so I believe I'll just move on and let sleeping dogs lie. Or is it "lay"?

- Home/hone: The very proper British-sounding narrator on a scholarly Science Channel program reported that researchers are "honing in on" the answer to some cosmic question. He meant "homing in on," of course. To "hone" is to make sharp, which the narrator was not.

Perhaps it's because we have so much trouble with what Webster's allotted us that we make up new expressions to fit the occasion. Here are a couple of -- but not myriad -- examples:

- A friend's father traveled to Boston on a business trip and found his hotel full. Being an educated man, he thought the establishment was "overbooked." No, he was told, the hotel was simply "under-departed." That seemed to shift the blame to the guests, so maybe the hotel knew what it was doing, after all. To me, though, "under-departed" sounds like a funeral that failed.

- A co-worker told me he was in a home improvement store and saw cartons holding new doors. Well, not doors, but "entry units." He said he immediately headed for the exit unit.

There are so many more words to complain about, but you get the idea. If you argue that it does no harm to toss words about willy-nilly, you would be wrong and should hush up and take your chair, man.

Reach Glynn Moore at (706) 823-3419 or glynn.moore@augustachronicle.com.