The one expression that I would like to see banned from our language is mistakes were made. I think I first heard it during the GW Bush administration from some government official if not from Bush himself. Mistakes do not have a life of their own - they are not made by themselves as suggested by this phrase, one which tries to exculpate the speaker. In the real world Imake mistakes, you make mistakes, he makes mistakes, she makes mistakes, we made mistakes - you get the gist of it. It is an effort to shift personal responsibility aka blame from the mistake maker to some amorphous creature called mistakes. These creatures called mistakes are the first sign of a dishonest speaker or writer who attempts to escape responsibility for his own actions or for those that happened under his watch.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 13:17:10 +0000
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