Going full grammar-guy on public radio

Is it just me? Harken to KPBS: “Thank you for listening and supporting KPBS…” This is KPBS, member-supported radio, with assets of, what, $75 million? You do a double take. Say what? “Thank you for listening and supporting KPBS.” Aaargh! How could they!? How do you even translate this? “Thank you for listening KPBS”? You don’t listen KPBS. You listen to KPBS!

Yes, they could mean “Thank you for 1) listening to them thanking you; and 2) for supporting KPBS. But I don’t buy it. For brevity, they thought they could get away with murder by mashing two incompatible messages. I bet there have been a zillion announcers’ booth arguments on this one. And on the region’s most pretentious radio outlet!

“Thank you for…” KPBS has been running this small but maddening grammatical outrage for months, years! (This is on top of announcers insisting on signing off as “K-pbs,” as though isolating the “K” delivers a message about ownership. I should call and record a righteously outraged message. I should also complain about the news reading crew consistently getting their stresses wrong. I should …I know. What thu heck. It really is no big deal. Just like someone playing a bum note once every verse in a song. Why complain? The rest of the song is fine. I’m just another curmudgeon going forensic on overstressed radio announcers. But as Eli Wallach says in Godfather Part III, there’s nothing more annoying than having a pebble in your shoe. “Thank you for listening…” is a pebble in my shoe. Will somebody talk to somebody?