Worth noting on Grammar Rodeo Friday: Selig said "there's a myriad of details to work out," and according to Merriam-Webster:
Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.Poll results: "And are you okay with using 'myriad' as a noun, as in 'there's a myriad of ways ...'?" Of course, says 54%; 25% says "it hurts my brain" and 20% insists "never, never."
Words used to have different meanings and uses. They used to have different spellings, too. Doesn't make it right to misuse or misspell the word today. As for the playoffs, I could be swayed by this if there were a way to end the regular season in mid-September. Baseball in November isn't baseball and we're already there without this extra week of playoffs.
ReplyDeleteWell, my husband has been looking for the final straw to snap and beat the crap out of either Bud Selig or Dusty Baker, and I guess ol' Bud just won that race.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't give a fig about uses of myriad, but there is no world in which the baseball playoffs need to get longer or include more teams. We already have a tournament that involves more teams - it's called THE REGULAR SEASON.
ReplyDeleteThe NHL and NBA playoff schedules are not what we want to emulate here, Mr. Selig. Baseball fans do not want a seven-week-long playoff.
Bud Selig is the worst commissioner in baseball history. Every decision he has ever made has been motivated by one thing only: Make as much money as possible for the owners. The regular seasons for the NBA and the NHL are pretty meaningless at this point; all the good teams make the playoffs automatically, all the bad teams never have a chance, and the mediocre teams battle for a No. 7 or No. 8 seed and then lose in the first round. Is that really something any baseball fan wants?
ReplyDeleteAnd we don't want three playoff teams from one division! Admit it, Selig, this is just another way to ensure that MLB playoffs include both the Red Sox and Yankees and their TV markets. Well, you have teams in other cities and sometimes they're just going to be better. We have just the right balance of playoffs right now (well, until we get to home games in NL stadiums in the World Series, but that's another issue), so let's not futz with it just for the sake of futzing with it.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, there's one benign motivation here -- it'd be nice to make it less easy to make it to the WS as a Wild Card and incentivize winning the division. I'd rather do it by playing with home-field advantage than adding more playoff teams, though. No way the playoffs should be longer.
ReplyDelete"Had the expanded playoff format been in place last year, David Ortiz and the Red Sox would have been in." Subtle, SI.
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm an avid hockey fan and love that the playoffs take forever. It's part of the sport's aura. But hockey plays HALF the regular season games that baseball does. There is no need to lengthen the playoff season and I say that as a Red Sox fan. It's like social promotion or trophies for playing, not winning. This is the pros. All of these men are going to get paid, no matter what. We don't need to include teams who don't make the cut just for the sake of more baseball. It's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteNow now, he's still better than that railroading racist, Kenesaw Landis.
ReplyDeleteI toyed with the idea of adding the qualifier "worst commissioner since Landis." So I guess the nicest thing that anyone can say about Selig is that he might be only the SECOND-worst commissioner in the history of baseball. And there have been some lousy commissioners.
ReplyDeleteThe other point that I have to painfully concede: No matter how many teams make the playoffs, the New York Mets are not likely to be one of them anytime soon.
Here's another Red Sox fan who is against expanding the number of teams / length of the post-season.
ReplyDeleteNL teams playing a wild card get to use a DH. AL teams playing a wild card team get to use two DH's.
ReplyDeleteOnce baseball went to three divisions, one wild card became somewhat justified. But do we want baseball being played into the second week of November? It gets cold up in Fenway.
I think we need to go back to one Championship Series with two division winners playing into the World Series. If they want to create extra post-season games, relegate the bottom five teams in the AL and NL into a new Second Division League, where the champion gets promoted to the Majors and the #2 and #3 teams battle it out in a seven-game series for a similar privilege, while the last-place NL and AL teams get relegated.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that screws up the statistics, but they've been screwed up because of steroids anyway. And it's time to stop pretending that the Pittsburgh Pirates and Toronto Blue Jays are competitive with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
I've already stopped watching baseball because the wildcard, unbalanced schedules, and interleague play disgust me so much. Shorten the games to 2:15, restore some competitive balance, and I'll consider returning to the sport.
<span>As a Red Sox fan, I say amen, JJF. The playoffs do not need to include the Sox and Yankees every year. It's not healthy for the game, and it will make their (inevitably 4+ hour long) regular season matchups even less meaningful.</span>
ReplyDeleteAgreed with no need to expand the playoffs further. I agree with Tim Lincecum on this one. Plus baseball into November toys with my football viewing and its unacceptable. Keep the playoffs as they are now or shorten the season to get done in October at the latest. November baseball anywhere but the West Coast (minus Seattle/Frisco) is asking for freezing temperatures.
ReplyDelete