This one I blame all on television. I’ve been watching way too much television recently. It’s something I do when I’m sitting at the table eating lunch, but it’s gotten to be one of those distractions that I use other than computer games. We have “basic cable” and that gives up 60 something channels but truly, it’s not enough. If you take out the golf channel (yes, it exists and Seattle has it. Dear gods.) and the religious and shopping channels, and the heavy Boy channels (most of the sports/outdoor crap - occasionally ESPN or ESPN2 shows skating or something I want to watch) and “Spike” which used to be TNN, the Nashville Network but which now shows lots of car crash tv junk (Dukes of Hazzard, I think, and made for tv paeans to Dale Earnhart or whatever) there’s a lot less.

Yeah, there’s the Food Channel but I won’t watch Emeril, who’s still there too often, nor that revolting Southern woman. I’m sorry her accept is like bamboo under fingernails and her FOOD??? There’s a whole group of Paula Dean anti-fans on the Serious Eats (www.seriouseats.com, often worth it, posts lots of funny stuff but is also responsible for serious language abuse – today we start “favoriting” on this website. No WE don’t. THEY do. We try never give in to verbizing, though I sometimes find myself misusing words and it makes me flinch.) website commentary gang of “Paula Dean is trying to kill us”.

Half the cooks on this network are hefty, fat, pudgy, you name the word. Mario Batalli, Paula Dean, Ina Garten. Mind you, Garten looks very healthy and this is not a slam. I’m there and it makes sense to me that cooks of pasta, those who use lots of fattening ingredients and who like their food, well they’re going to look it. But so many of hoe other cooks are so skinny, I do wonder if they eat their own food. The one Stu marvels at most for this is Giada De Laurentiis. Does she ever eat anything that she’s prepared?

The Country Music network sometimes has country music – JUST IMAGINE – but apparently they’ve decided to go the way of every other station, including MTV, which started all this crap, and show “reality television” so if I’m lucky, I find one of the hours when they show music videos (usually in a top 20 format) so I see the same damn tired George Strait video where George Strait sings about what it’s like to be George Strait. That’s if I’m lucky. If not, I get “Nanny 911” a horrific pretend show where, I guess, these British women come into households full of screaming tantrum throwing kids whose mothers are useless and whose daddies don’t like being told what to do, and one hour later, all is calm, all is bright.

So goddamit, I end up watching competition shows like “Top Chef” or a cooking show or something. I finally broke off my addiction to “Dancing with the Stars” after the title went to the lesser of the two finalists. I tried watching the next season briefly and Priscilla Presley gave me nightmares.

Some of the cooking show hosts seem to be intelligent and comfortable with English grammar. Alton Brown actually teaches us something and we find him amusing. Ina Garten almost works for me, because she uses real food but I can’t afford her ingredients. The aforementioned Paula Dean cracks glasses in our kitchen and thinks butter is the best thing ever and seems to deliberately cook the worst of Southern cooking she can. She’s to food as KFC’s “bowls” are to say yakitori. (look them up. If you don’t go “urp”, I’ll be surprised. But it involves mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, fried chicken, and shredded cheese. If you would like, you can get one with a biscuit on the side. Sorry but I really think it’s beyond disgusting, especially in the face of what we keep hearing is an obesity epidemic. I know, that’s why folks GO to fast food places. They don’t GO for salads, but YUCH!!!!!!! Icky eu eu eu eu!!!!)

But I digress.

So what else is new?

Truly, it was noticing something on a cooking show that became such a tic for me. I started noticing that the host of the show used it constantly. I know many of us do that without realizing it. I’m apparently big on “you know”, as my stepdad pointed out – annoyingly and I said “tough, get used it” or something similar – but I betcha I could be cured of it if I had a national audience and I wanted to get something across to them.

This particular annoying host (who wins the prize for perky) II have a buttn that reads “thank yhou for not being perky” just so you know where I sit) “ups” everything. We not only chop up, fry up, serve up and plate up, we measure up, we stir up, mix up. YES yes, yes, I know, that is appropriate grammar. But she could also just chop, serve, mix and serve. “Plate up” is one I’ve heard only on this network so I assume it’s restaurant talk for “put stuff on a plate and make it ready to serve to the customer.” But I started twitching with every “up”. And I now notice it every time anyone uses it. It’s an unnecessary word in almost every usage. It’s unnecessary in almost every use, and yet, it’s taken over. First it was one damn chef/presenter, now I hear it all the time.

Yeah, there is a difference between “stand” and “stand up”. There are absolutely times when “up” changes or adds to meaning. I’m not arguing that. “Cheer” does not mean “cheer up”. But it a television tic and now that I’m noticed it? I can’t stop. Do you have any of those?