OK, here's one for the Pet Peeves list. What is with "surveill?" This is not a word. I keep hearing this one from cops on tv--not tv cops, but real policeman who end up on tv: "We were surveilling the house..."

To which my immediate response is:"You were not!" They may have had the house under surveillance, but they most certainly were not "surveilling" it. If it takes too much energy to say "under surveillance" they could cut to the chase and simply say they were "watching" the house.

I assume that this bastardization of a perfectly good word is yet another example of the hideous practice of turning nouns into verbs that they were never meant to be. I suppose I should be grateful that they aren't trying to say "surveillancing."