Absolument

Many moons ago, I pointed out that Saint Christina the Astonishing must be the patron saint of journalists, because they are so frequently astonished.

Staying with the religious theme, I have also noticed that they are always giving and seeking absolution. What I mean of course is that when they set up those fake one-on-one interviews with each other, the set-up question (e.g. "Did the government sex up the dossier?") is always greeted with enthusiastic agreement, beginning, "Absolutely..."

Apart from being a cliche (and once noticed, annoying as hell), it's an odd thing, in this world of shades of grey, for information to be continually presented as unquestionable, definite. It's another symptom, I suppose, of BBC dumbing down. See, they will insist on the high quality of their output, absolutely, but the people they are drawing from universities onto their trainee programmes, are all, clearly, morons.

It's celebrity syndrome. Everything is a route to somewhere else. Just as people don't become children's TV presenters because they like or care about children, people only see being a radio reporter as a stepping stone onto their real ambition, which is to front Changing Rooms, or get the Holiday Programme gig.

Anyway, the American Heritage dictionary points out,

For some time, absolutely has been used informally as an intensive, as in an absolutely magnificent painting. In an earlier survey, a majority of the Usage Panel disapproved of this usage in formal writing.