Preville on Politics

Spinal Tapped

Posted on November 28, 2007 by Philip Preville

Checking the Google News page today, I learned that Alanis Morrissette had been “tapped” for the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, meaning she is to be inducted. Similarly, Jake Gyllenhall has been “tapped” for the starring role in an upcoming Joe Namath biopic, and Jason Parker has been “tapped” as police chief in the town of Dalton, GA. In my mind’s eye, all three have had a spigot plunged into their thigh, the better to drain and capture their essential humours.

Mind you, some of today’s headlines demonstrate the verb’s proper use, in reference to a collective or a body, such as “Riverside County residents tapped for national health survey.” Still, the individual—and improper—usage must be the hoariest misuse of the English language to afflict headline writers in the last quarter century. And it bugs me. Just had to get that off my chest. Thank you. That is all.

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Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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