Concerning "Concerning"

For my sin in having the local Fox station on I had to hear one of our state senators blatting on about some letter he objected to. It was hard for me to ignore because he saying "it is concerning," as in, "it's a problem." It is a problem--because "concerning" doesn't mean what he thinks it does. That a startling number of our elected officials are grinning imbeciles will scarcely come as a surprise to you, especially when you consider who's doing the voting. I don't claim that it's news. However like TV news anchors, school superintendents and PR directors of large corporations, they get a lot of air time. Regular people listen to them, and quite aside from the unreliable content of their message, it is delivered with as many errors as possible. Is there one obvious word that would sum up their meaning? They throw in a couple more and turn it into meaningless flap or they try to invent a new one, like "operationalize." Then they turn around and try to collapse "it is a matter of concern" into "concerning," doggedly pushing past perfectly acceptable words in their efforts. This is the definition of "concerning" from my favorite oracle--the dictionary: "relating to: regarding." Not "problematic." Not "a thing to be worried about." So when Soccer Mom gets a prating-fool-on-the-street interview with the local news about a homeless shelter moving into Minnetonka, she is shaking her head and shrilling "It is related to! It is very regarding." She's not just an overprivileged NIMBY with very little compassion; she's an illiterate, overprivileged NIMBY with very little compassion.