I was watching one of the local TV stations this morning.  Their reporter was reporting on the current DISD funding crisis and he was trying to explain that the district was $64 million in the hole because someone didn’t record the costs of hiring a large number of teachers last year.  He kept saying that the teachers were hired to reduce “classroom sizes” when he should have said they were hired to reduce “class sizes.” 

This really grated on my nerves, because unless the teachers were busy building new walls to reduce the sizes of the classrooms, they really weren’t reducing “classroom” sizes.  The unnecessary addition of ‘room’ to the word ‘class’ changes the meaning of the sentence such that it no longer makes sense.

Language matters, people!