LEND ME YOUR EAR: `HUMITURE' CAN PLAY HAVOC WITH OUR LANGUAGE

This column was inspired or provoked by weeks of 100-plus humiture in and around Cape Girardeau. The coinage, however, is not original with me. My friend Esther Riechmann tells me its become the buzz word in her part of the country.

As everyone knows, most of America the Beautiful turned into America the Tropics for the season. Thus, in a rare sweep of sympathy for offenders, I feel obliged to blame the weather for most of the slips or solicisms included in todays review. Mercifully, September promises to be kinder and gentler to us all.

Day after day, radio and TV announcers warned us that a heated advisory was again in effect. Reporters were probably suffering from the mere effort of verbalizing, but the correct term, as they finally discovered, was heat advisory. Advisory was used in the sense of both information and advice, so we had no quarrel on this score. Too often, we find advise used in the place of inform.

From radio staffers, we learned that many area schools were to be released early on account of the heat. This was a welcome release for teachers and youngsters alike, but schools were dismissed for whatever reason long before these speakers were born.

Also in connection with the opening of schools, many children requiring special attention were said to be in their pubical years. The word wanted was pubescent, but the humiture was unbearable, and pubical took less effort to pronounce.

At Mercy Learning Center, featured on CNN, a food product called SUN was illustrated in detail with a sun face made of chili peppers. Mercy me, did the sun need help for burning? From peppers? Nothing wrong with the language here, but definitely poor choice in food and other artistry in view of the weather and perspiring audience.

The Great Flood of 1993 also contributed to our list of blunders. Although Mighty Mo was receding, a reporter warned the optimistic that many places were still submersed in water. These places were either submerged or immersed, but the threat may have caused the lady to confuse the terms. Only in jest would anyone coin a word from two synonyms, and this reporter was dead serious.

Another airborne speaker proclaimed that business garried up to help flood victims. The only applicable word that approaches this sound is geared, but I prefer to think the gentleman was trying to verbalize Gary. Boss Gary would be the first to concede hes a Class-A Garrier.

From an alleged meteorologist TV watchers heard, This satellite shows where the storms is. Do It?, I mused. Another observer following the same storm explained, Two streets are still closed into the storm. How does one close a street into a storm? Still, fear of lightning is normal and can play havoc even with prepositions.

As for prepositions, what excuse did David Letterman have when he told Larry King, I asked from the state from which she was from? Such a gaffe so unnerved me, I forgot who the lady was, to say nothing of her reason for being on the show.

This is whats being happening! shouted a crazed black leader who was defending violence. Black or white, red or yellow, or a model with blue hair, to defend violence is far worse than any mistake in language.

Far removed from the insane fellows culture, C-SPAN recently presented a guided tour of our Supreme Courts posh chambers. Throughout the feature, the long-time tour guide kept repeating each chambers, then added that one chambers was on the back of the house. If the weather was responsible, each of the chambers, or one of the chambers would have required little more energy.

In an AP article denouncing Clintons new policy on gays in the military, a senator from Arizona was quoted as saying, The President heatedly denied that the new policy betrayed political weakness. The equally heated senator meant portrayed, and we could only hope this was a slip. Humiture is seldom a problem in dry Arizona.

Easier to condone because it was meant to be funny was a commercial for a product from Eagle food industry. I like these potato chips because theyre more potatier, crunched the lady sampler. A pox on whoever has revised this delightful picture and wording. Pourquoi.

On second thought, perhaps this is only another instance of someones being dazed by the heat and going crackers with the chips.