We must admit that when we are busily wading through the stack of newspapers and magazines which we dutifully try to keep ahead of, we are always on the lookout for two things, articles about Cooperstown and articles about language.

Therefore, we were delighted to discover in the March 19 edition of The Christian Science Monitor the announcement of a new feature, "Words in Play," by Ruth Walker. In her premier piece, "Words that travel light," she highlights some of the problems with which language has become encumbered.

She writes: "Compound modifiers strung together with hyphens are a particular bugbear. 'Police called to downtown East Podunk confronted anti-affirmative-action demonstrators as well as pro-children's-rights advocates, but did not interfere with the anti-mad-cow-ban cattle-and-bison-ranching activists blocking the pedestrian mall.'

And look what's happening to verbs - the 'muscles' of language. They're being crowded out by the more sedate linking verb constructions. (Linking verbs used to be known as 'copulative verbs' before the snicker factor got to be too much.) 'He lost his job' often loses out to 'He became unemployed.'"

As we read this particular article, we could not help but think of the he-we's ongoing compliant that long ago and far away before our time with this column, the flight habits of the Canada goose were duly recorded with "Geese were seen..." Never once did "so and so see geese..." Nonetheless, we were most happy to realize that there are others who bemoan the decline of the English language and we certainly look forward to the ongoing discussion of that issue in the future.

While on the subject of language, we read with equal interest, both in The Christian Science Monitor and the Associated Press online, about a recent survey conducted by the Plain English Campaign to identify trite phrases.

After asking 5,000 people, in 70 countries, the winning trite phrase was "At the end of the day..." "Like" when used as punctuation tied for second place with "At this moment in time..." while "With all due respect..." came in fourth. Other trite phrases included 24/7; absolutely; address the issue; ballpark figure; bear with me; between a rock and a hard place; bottom line; I hear what you're saying; in terms of; it's not rocket science; moving the goal-posts; ongoing; pushing the envelope; the fact of the matter is; thinking outside the box; to be honest with you and touch base.

Now we are not certain, but we suspect that given a bit of thought, a wonderful piece could be written using each and every one of these cliches.

We think it might well rival one of the he-we's favorite mixed metaphors, which was, of course, "The hand that rocked the cradle, kicked the bucket." We would certainly encourage anyone who wishes to take a stab at using all the clichTs mentioned here to do so and then send us, via snail mail or e-mail at the addresses listed below, the finished result. We too will take a stab at this and see just how we might string these clichTs together. And, for those who might want more information about the Plain English Campaign, their website is: www.plainenglish.co.uk.

It has also come to our attention that language is not the only concern when it comes to writing. Punctuation also appears to be right up there on the list of concerns.

In fact, there is a new book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, written by Lynne Truss which deals with punctuation problems. In her review, "Don't lapse into a comma," which appeared in the April 6 edition of The Christian Science Monitor, Ruth Walker writes: "...the meat of the book is a series of chapters on individual marks, staring with the 'tractable apostrophe.' If I could get everyone in North America to read one chapter, it would be this one.

The poor little flying comma gets stuck, willy-nilly, into all sorts of situations where it's neither wanted or needed, and then left out of places where it is called for." We gather that the book was a surprise best seller in England and we are happy to learn of its arrival on this side of the pond.

In closing, least there be some question as to just what this "language" column has to do with Cooperstown, we hasten to point out that there are a number of expressions in our language which can trace their origins to baseball. "Southpaw," "to be in there pitching," "to touch all the bases," "right off the bat," "in the ballpark," and "to take a swing at" came instantly to mind after taking, in the April 2 edition of The Christian Science Monitor, the "Monitor Quiz" which featured, what else, the origin of baseball expressions. We think we will stick with the overworked cliches.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

Where nature smiles,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 607-547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.