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In this country, no one is above the lexicon laws. And I say what the laws are. Well. On this blog, anyway. And I have decreed some new lexicon laws for 2020. They apply to anyone who discusses politics henceforth, and all fines are tripled for those who get paid to talk politics on cable TV — now about one quarter of the adult population.
The following words and phrases are banned, and shall no longer be uttered:
-
- Electability. This is not a thing, it does not exist. To say someone is electable is like saying they live a charmed life, just before they get run over by a truck. The person said to have the most electability in the civilized world in 2016 was Hillary, and the man with the least was the Donald. The only way to know if a person is electable is to count the votes, after which the person is either elected, or not. Never speak this word again.
- The campaign trail. Again, this is not a thing, and does not exist. Although I will admit that if you go to Iowa in the year before a presidential election year, you are going to see a lot of trampled corn stalks, but that’s because of reporters looking for people wearing bib overalls to interview (10% of Iowans live on farms, but do 98% of all political interviews in Iowa). Saying that a candidate is “on the campaign trail” conveys no information whatsoever, except that the speaker is a lazy thinker and writer.
- Held accountable. You can be charged with a crime, fined for an infraction, punished for your sins. But there is no where you can go to be “held accountable” and no authority on earth equipped to do it (there are no “certified public accountables”) for the simple reason that there is no way to figure out what it means. To use the phrase is to say, “It means whatever the hell I think it means, and I’m not going to give you a clue as to what I think it means.”
- You’re exactly right, Chet (spoken by a reporter in the field to the anchor who has just told us what he’s going to say). Just stop it. We know you told the anchor what you were going to say, that he read exactly what you wrote, so how could he be anything other than “exactly right,” in your opinion?
- Commander in chief. The president of a republic has a job title. It’s “president.” And while the Constitution insists on civilian control of the military, it gives almost all the power — to declare war and to spend money — to the Congress. Calling the president commander-in-chief makes him want to put on a fancy uniform and go play with his army. Don’t do it.
- Community. Even when used in its strictest sense, to denote a group of people who live in the same place, you cannot then talk about a community as if it were a single thing — as in, “the community wants,” or “the community believes.” And when you make up communities, such as the LGBTQ community, or the homeless community or the like, it gets even more ridiculous to make blanket statements about what that community, which is not really a community, thinks or does. Same thing applies to other collective nouns, such as “the American people are tired of this,” or “Generation X is selfish.” Throw these expressions out. They are just sloppy thinking draped with words.
- Take a listen. I cannot take a listen, or bring it, or otherwise transport it. I can only listen. I suspect Jake Tapper of starting this, but now everybody in broadcasting says it all the time. Yesterday I was invited by a public-radio announcer to “take a listen” to a Beethoven symphony. Just stop it.
- Thanks for having me. It’s bad enough that fawning anchors “thank” people profusely for taking the time to sell their books, snake oil or bad ideas, but I can accept that as a small courtesy, to which the correct response is two words: “You’re welcome.” “Thanks for having me” is appropriate only when directed to someone with whom one has just shared a one-night stand.
Are there any other nominations from the floor?
“Etymology” by Ben Taylor55 is licensed under CC BY 2.0
I second all your motions, Tom, and I’d add one more, though it pertains to simple English usage more than to rhetoric. It’s the confusion between “compose” and “comprise”. Nine times out of ten, “comprise” is used to mean “compose”; e.g. the fifty states are said to comprise the US. They don’t. They compose it. It comprises them. Even worse, to my ear, the US is said to be “comprised of” the fifty states, which would only make sense if the speaker were using “of” in an archaic sense to mean “by”. Dunno how this mistake got started. Maybe “comprise” just feels more nifty to say.
Wordsmithing is pretty much a lost art. Another example: half the people broadcasting and writing about the current kerfuffle in Washington do not know that John Roberts is the chief justice NOT of the Supreme Court, but of the United States. And on and on.
Good list, mostly journalistic or political in origin and use. I recognize empty rhetoric has been in use practically forever to prettify speech and buffalo the public, who feign understanding rather than admitting confusion or calling bullshit on the bullshit. My nomination is anything preceded by the modifier digital. As opposed to what? Analogue? The fact that things occur over electronic networks doesn’t make them a special category of thing. I’m guilty of promulgating some of these terms, with blog posts called “Digital Detox,” “Digital Exhaust,” and “Digital Crowding” that explore hip new coin for things that already exist. I’m really more interested in the issues discussed than bandying about nomenclature no one recognizes.
Oh. Oh. Oh. And “smart.” Any noun preceded by “smart” has got to go.
“In the beginning was the Word…” No truer statement has ere been made. Language is the pinnacle of human evolution – the one characteristic that delineates us from all other species. The development of language was only marginally a result of human intelligence, rather it was more a driver of same. Other creatures have basic intelligence, as well as prehensile hands, bipedalism, stereoscopic vision and elaborate social relationships. Only humans speak (and write) in complex, abstract terms, and do so on a regular and continuing basis. Such an artifice is essential to intricate thought processes, allowing humans to experience and communicate in the ‘here and now’* as well as in the ‘there and then’.
Societies at their apex produce great writers and orators: the likes of Cicero, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Jung, Churchill and Kennedy. But as cultures collapse the vernacular, even of the ruling classes, becomes coarser and simpler…And not always in a small way, but bigly.
And GK, to take the principle into the future, Frank Herbert’s “Dune” was premised on language being the driver of human advancement and evolution. Not technology.
A microcosm of this principle are Domain Names, (i.e. dailyimpact.net). They exists because we remember words, or names much better than numbers. Once the nascent Internet got larger than about 50 hosts, they realized one cannot keep track of all the IP addresses and had to come up with a better way.
To take the example one step further, domain names (DNS) exists as an abstract layer, or administrative function on top of the hardware and software. As does our language. This is not art imitating life so much as necessary structure inherent to our state of intelligence.
Language is always evolving. Sometimes for the better, and this essay’s context, for the worse. Being from north of the 49th we get to witness the ritualistic slaughter of the American (nee English) language on a routine basis. There are some that are “cringe-worthy” (thank you Seinfeld).
A glaring example is a “pree-sen-tation”. How did presents get adulterated into this pronunciation? Drives me nuts. My American niece and nephew understood the aberration when I asked them if they were getting “pree-sents” for Christmas.
I can understand the prefix is up for debate as we say “pree-vent”.
One can save themselves a lot of head scratching and cringing if we understand language to be more cultural and less mechanistic. I don’t like those loose boundaries either as I view grammar and lexicon as a sign of education and intelligence. But there it is…
I wish people would stop saying they are “jealous” when they mean “envious”. We are jealous of what we have; we are envious of what others have.
I understand this wish will not be granted.
“Thanks for having me” is something one may say to one’s mother.
I cringe when I hear “Thank-you for your service”, which is now addressed to government workers as well as wearers of military uniforms.
You said it! It’s one of my pet peeves. I also get pissed when a barista answers, “awesome” when I ask for a cup of regular coffee. How is a cup of coffee awesome?And what the hell is a ‘barista’ anyway? A coffee guy. And is there a verb form of ‘awful’? Apparently so; last week a friend of mime complained that he had a tendency to “awfulize” trivial problems in his life…The list goes on.
Two hanging offences spring to mind immediately.
One: “Moving/going forward” AHHHHAAAhhh
Two: Thank you SO much” AAHHAAA..Can we not say a simple thank you any more?
“Pull the trigger” – used to dramatize some action that’s not very dramatic (like making a purchase). And all the sports metaphors used in business. “Get it across the finish line” and “hit it out of the ball park” and “slam dunk” and on and on… Usually employed by overweight middle-aged guys who couldn’t run up a flight of stairs without turning blue.
My (un)favorite: pre-existing.
As anyone noticed the redundancy? Worse, it has crept into many corners of everyday language. There is a pre-condition, but existing is existing. It was already there because, well…, it EXISTS! It was always PRE.
And it is infecting Canadian language too. That is the toxic effect of shared media. However, up here we don’t have “pre-existing” conditions because we don’t have private insurance companies to satisfy. If one has a congenital or long term condition, it doesn’t matter, one gets medical support.
But drill down further. Why is US private health insurance entrenched and what is the specter of “pre-existing”? Is it really the Land of The Free when one cannot leave a miserable job because they have medical coverage for a (to be newly defined) pre-existing condition? Sounds like indentureship to me.
That is the power of language. We banter around on the surface, but it can impact reality on many levels.
How about “According to our sources…..”
Simply defined as, What are you going to believe,
your eyes or the BS I am about to say? This also begs the questions: Do you have a mouse in your pocket? The majestic plural does not apply hon, just who is this we?
If I am reluctant to speak I am reticent…period. It MEANS reluctant to speak. One is never “reticent to” anything. It is, so far, a word that shallow misuse has not robbed of its distinct meaning. Use words correctly or they get ruined,like misusing tools.
The worst use of language is always in business “slang” – really, doublespeak fabricated and imposed upon a docile workforce.
Business Administration – making money by acting like a psychopath, and being respected for it.
Human Resources – recruiting people who will do what psychopaths tell them, and be thankful for the opportunity.
Public Relations – making psychopaths look cool or, failing that, human.
Communications – explaining to unruly consumers why they are losers who barely deserve to consume your product and need to continue doing so forever.
Business Analysis – figuring out how to shift costs, hide product defects, evade taxes, and cut jobs.
Market Research – lying about what people need.
Research and Development – giving the Market Research guys something to work with; also promoting job-killing technologies.
Securities floatation – risking other people’s money.