Word Horror of the Day: Architectural

"There's an absence of any sort of architectural plan to the status quo." --Ian Morrison, spokesman for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

Oh, argh.

Well, there are lots of things wrong with that sentence, but let's pick one. Architectural, here, is meaningless. What's the difference between an architectural plan and a just-plain plan? Nothing. Architectural an icing word: it's smooth and glossy; it hides your cracks and crumbs; but it's bad for you and it tastes awful.

What makes it worse, here, is that Mr. Morrison is in favour of "advantaging" (Aah! my brain!) Canadian creative talent, including writers, in television, movies, and radio. Hey, Mr. Morrison, if you want writers, hire me. I can translate your whole speech for you.

"We think requiring Canadian Content is a great idea – but the current patchwork regulations are hard to follow, hard to enforce, and hardly working. We need to put a better set of regulations in place."

At least, I think that's what he's saying. It's hard to work out when you have to duck all the falling architecture.