I haven’t been accumulating these much, probably because I stopped reading the main source, The Huffington Post. Ergo some of these may be repeats from days of yore, but so be it, as we have new readers. I’ll give just three:
1.) “Advancements” used instead of “advances”. The longer version, which as far as I can see is identical to the older but shorter one, seems to be taking over (I’ll give one example below). Why is this happening? Only, as far as I can see, because “advancesments” sounds fancier and more intellectual than the simpler “advances.” Let’s go back to the shorter word!
Here’s a Huffpost example from 2011 (click to read if you must):
2.) “Stakeholder” used as “someone with a material interest in a (usually) political or ideological discussion”. This word is not per se offensive, but is inevitably associated with wokeness, like “problematize” or “intersectional.” Particularly in science, it is used to argue (often without reasons) that some people have a say over how science is done. Example: cases in which animal bones or Native American found on government property automatically become controlled by Native American “stakeholders” from a given tribe, even if it cannot be shown that stakeholders from the tribe ever had any stake in the objects at issue (see Elizabeth Weiss’s book). I consider the word is a canary in the coalmine of woke prose.
HOWEVER, although one sees this word frequently, I notice that those who police language now consider it offensive, as in the articles below (click to read):
From Research Impact Canada:
The second site reports why the word is bad and some suggested replacements (which nobody seems to be using):
The word stakeholder is becoming increasingly contested due to its colonial connotations. Has this hit your radar and are you trying out other words?
In November, Mark Reed posted a thought piece on the use of the word stakeholder concluding “ultimately that means re-thinking our use of the word “stakeholder”.”
The issue with the word stakeholder is that in a colonial context, a stakeholder was the person who drove a stake into the land to demarcate the land s/he was occupying/stealing from Indigenous territories. Continued use of the term can be construed as disrespectful of Indigenous people as well as perpetuating colonization and re-traumatization.
Mark’s post was followed up by a fairly lively LinkedIn discussion. The only conclusion was that everyone respected the discussion. Some options to replace stakeholder were rights holder, KMb constituents, actant and potential beneficiaries.
On November 25, Research Impact Canada (RIC) held a discussion on the use of the word stakeholder in a Dr RIC session – a monthly member driven call where RIC members craft the agenda. About 25 RIC member participants were present. In advance, I sent around Mark’s first post and the subsequent LinkedIn discussion to get everyone on the same page. Some interesting points arose in the discussion:
- Stakeholder isn’t used by some who have a community-based research practice. It comes across as corporate.
- It has a “man vibe”
- I checked with co-chair of Indigenous Council at York University, and he was not aware of the issue. It doesn’t mean it isn’t, just that it is not a discussion that has permeated all Indigenous settings.
One take away is that this is an issue beyond Indigenous contexts so an important discussion whether or not you are approaching this as decolonization.
Some options to stakeholder were
-
Those in the circle
-
Those who do/should care
-
Partners – although that was acknowledged as having a legal definition
3.) “Dudebros”. This is often used as a general disparagement of men in general, not just a certain type of man. If people want to disparage, say, pretentious college frat guys as “dudebros”, then say whom you’re disparaging. The term should be as offensive to men as the word “chicks” is for women.
*********
The object here is for readers to add their own phrases they don’t like (one I considered here was “it is what it is”, though it can have a real meaning, like “accept things that can’t be changed.)
Do not bother to correct me as to what you see as the “real” meanings of these words, as I am simply giving my own personal reasons to dislike them.
Two that rile me slightly: 1) ‘Not a problem’ in situations where there is no possibility of a problem. For example, ‘Two flat whites, please.’ ‘Not a problem.’
2) ‘Going forward’ – nearly always unnecessary. For example, ‘We’ve changed our weekly lesson time to Friday at 10am going forward.’
I agree about “not a problem”, although I am very fond of the Australian “too easy” used to mean much the same thing.
Couldn’t they just spell it “steakholder”? Everyone except vegans would be fine with it.
LOL! 😀
“Dropped” as in “the band dropped their new song”. Now it means “release”. It used to mean to let go, that you no longer had possession of it; you’d dropped it, fercryingoutloud. I can’t stand that use and when I hear it I immediately stop listening (or reading).
You beat me to it — that one drives me nuts, and there have been many cases in which I was unable to tell if something had ended or just started!
I’ll add another one that grates on my sensibilities: “price point.” As in “The Camry is an affordable car at this price point.” What is the difference between that, and “The Camry is an affordable car at this price”? I gather that in marketing there is some value in thinking of price ranges for various types of products, and perhaps “price point” makes sense there, but as a substitute for or embellishment of “price” it usually adds nothing.
I HATE price point🙀🙈
Also “dropped”.
Or even just “The Camry is an affordable car?”
Ha. At least we know that “affordable housing” means “subsidized.”
Ha! That’s so true, Leslie.
Agreed. This is “with-it” jargon, to show how cool one is because one is conversant with the latest argot. But now newpapers are starting to use it, too.
+1
I’m used to “dropped” meaning “released”, you see it so often you have to deal with it. But when Wired magazine published an article about how some software package “dropped” a feature, that was really annoying.
That’s just stupid. When a software product drops a feature that means it now has one less feature, not one more. Euphemisms, pretensions, and hip jive talk I can cope with; but actual misinformation is simply not acceptable.
I would have taken that to mean that they had removed a feature. But then, I’m not likely to be in their target demographic.
Exactly. Which was why I had all that cognitive dissonance upon reading the article.
Ditto! But I also hate “released” when referring to a book. What’s wrong with “published”?
Totally agree and I may have brought it up on one of these posts before. I once saw a headline that said “BBC drops Doctor Who”. I missed the word “Trailer” which was on the end and clicked on the story to see why it had been cancelled only to be disappointed. I don’t know why Ars Technica thinks the release of a trailer aka advertisement for a programme is news worthy.
I laughed out loud at the progressive criticism of “stakeholder”. That caught me totally by surprise! Thanks. I never would have seen it otherwise. It would fun to tell environmentalists and aboriginal activists protesting a pipeline, “But you’re not stakeholders in this project. It says so right here…”
Yet, other indigenous people need stakeholders to eliminate any vampires terrorising the local population.
The usage of ‘stakeholder’ gives the lie to the proposed origin of claiming land. It is used to indicate a party with ‘skin in the game’ or a ‘dog in the fight’ – which is to say a vested interest in the outcome. I should think it obvious that this refers to someone who has a stake in the pot of a card game like poker.
But arguing with the politically correct is a high-stakes game, and I should probably refrain from correcting them…
“Melty” cheese instead of melted cheese is used in commercials all the time, and I hate it. I used to hear “stakeholders” in just about every meeting when I worked at a university (not as faculty; I worked in administration).
As well as “melting” cheese (Jack in the Box has done this), as if to imply the sandwich/burger is just waiting for you…
Stakeholder used to be huge back before I retired.
I really dislike the word problematic. It has almost surely been mentioned in one of these lists before, but I discount most of everything said after it (except in the rare cases where it is being used to mock wokeness).
Talking about what is and isn’t problematic is like a low-stakes sport for the world’s most pedantic and dedicated virtue signallers. Whoever can problematize the most things most problematically wins. Everyone else–including the vast majority of the population that isn’t particpating–loses.
” Whoever can problematize the most things most problematically wins.”
For some reason it had never occurred to me that there’s a race to find things to criticize among virtue signalers.Duh! Now that you’ve pointed it out, it’s so obvious.
You’ve sparked an advancement in my thinking.
😹
Don’t get me started on “problematic.” It’s a trigger word that what follows may not be what it seems.
At least the grammar of “problematic” as an adjective is normal English. In the 80s and 90s we were bedeviled by devotees of Literary Theory using “problematic” as a noun. They were just trying to fit in with their French heroes, who were writing about “la problematique” and “une problematique”, and they signaled their belonging by creating “a problematic” instead of simply translating as “a problem”.
A more-or-less random search result showing the form “problematique” is just normal in French, and how a modern translator need not get stuck with “the problematic” in English: Title of a World Bank report: “Gender issues in child labor : La problematique hommes-femmes dans le travail des enfants” .
Translation: The Oppressed People aren’t bothered by it. They need to brood about it some more till they work themselves up into a state.
And “permeated all Indigenous settings”. I’m not sure there’s a more pompous way of saying that they’ve just haven’t heard of this fabricated indignity yet.
Once they all have, the language police will stir the pot enough to ensure that they’re on board with the predetermined decision for them to be outraged by it.
Agree. It’s patronising to tell indigenous people what they should be offended by. Whoever did that is practicing colonialism and should be ashamed.
Perhaps the indigenous are the intelligent ones who realise that stakes were not only hammered into the ground in land occupied by indigenous people. Entitled people have tried to claim land everywhere from all ordinary people. Not just those referred to as indigenous.
Oh dear, perhaps the twenty-something, woke female editors at HUFF hear “advances” and have a mini #MeToo-moment stroke.
Twenty years ago, at a state lab, we used “stakeholders” to signify cross-sector decision-making. We generated genetic data for the state and shared it with government officials, physicians, hospitals, and parents—the stakeholders.
That “stakeholders” is now under woke tone-policing is hardly surprising. Do they really have nothing better to do? I think I can answer my own question:
“Stakeholders” is now being rebranded under the DEI banner of “community engagement”—a convenient disguise, offering just enough plausible deniability to keep DEI alive now that Trump has laid down the law. Cue the rhetoric of “community partners,” “vulnerable populations,” and “underserved voices”—all the right signals, just under a new name.
It’s a classic case of the euphemism treadmill—just as “Negroes” became “Blacks”, then “African Americans”, the terminology shifts while the underlying concept remains unchanged. “Stakeholders” are now “community partners,” “vulnerable populations,” and “underserved voices,” cloaked in DEI jargon to sidestep political scrutiny while continuing business as usual.
“stakeholder” indeed is a plague.
Its plural “stakeholders” – because there are supposed to be more than one – is a dialectical transformation of “council”, perhaps more familiar from the Russian as sovet – the origin of a soviet, a “workers council”.
“Stakeholder” is front-and-center in the “stakeholder capitalism” model in Dengism – the modern dialectical synthetic product of global communism—fascism – implemented through Environmental-Social-and-Governance ( ESG ) metrics as can be found in many companies.
Holy shl*t, Bryan! I had no idea Soviet meant governing council—that puts so much into perspective.
^^post-edit time window addendum: I’m not sure if I’m being made fun of, which is fine, but see :
Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet
Klaus Schwab
With Peter Vanham
Wiley
2021
From the inside flap:
“Reimagining our global economy so it becomes more sustainable and prosperous for all
Our global economic system is broken. But we can replace the current picture of global upheaval, unsustainability, and uncertainty with one of an economy that works for all people, and the planet. […]”
No, I’m not making fun of you—I genuinely had no idea that Soviet meant governing council. It makes perfect sense that “stakeholders,” “governing council,” and DEI are just peas in the same socialist/authoritarian pod.
[ emoji like the praying hands but it’s atheist ]
🙏 🙌 (In a secular, non-theistic sense back!)
How about a word that is perfectly fine but often misused? I wrote about “Shakespearean” a few years ago but revised it just a couple of days ago:
https://medium.com/@lyonsnyc/anthony-hopkins-is-not-a-shakespearean-actor-fa807fc281b4
Good piece! I love its curmudgeonly attitude!
An entertaining read, in small part because Postscript III claimed that Trump could not appear “on the Colorado ballet”; doubtless, ballet lovers were relieved.
Yes, clearly he would be in the Colorado ballet.
I don’t care much for the word “utilize” when used in ostensibly informative non-fiction. It’s a three-syllable word for “use” that, like “advancements”, seems to owe its popularity to people who think it sounds smarter and fancier than the humdrum alternative. But it literally just means “use.” It always makes me think the author is more interested in burnishing their image than transmitting information or, at the very least, rather lazy and careless when it comes to crafting communications.
I’m 100% with you on “utilize.”
As the fortune cookie says, never use a long word when a diminutive one will do!
” . . . when a diminutive one will do.”
That made me LOL for real.
Eschew sesquipedalianisms.
As I once heard someone ask, “Do you use ‘utilize’ or utilize ‘use’?”
RE Stakeholder, OED and others claim it is originally one with whom bets are deposited when a wager is made, not holding a stake in the ground to steal land.
My greatest dislike is the rampant misuse of the reflexive myself. As in “just send an email to myself or my boss.”
I always thought that stakeholder came from gambling. A person might be a great poker player but have no money, so he would look for someone to “stake” him, i.e. put up the money for him to enter a poker game, then the two would split the winnings. I’m sure I’ve heard this term used in old Westerns.
Prospectors would lay claim to a piece of land by driving stakes on its boundaries hence, staking a claim. Plus I think there are older examples. But I could be mistaken.
Yes, misuse of ‘myself’ is annoying. It’s also interesting. Three decades ago I noticed colleagues and students made a general assumption that any use of ‘I’ or ‘me’ in speech is bad manners. This assumption comes from at least two sources:
(1) not knowing when to use ‘me’ rather than ‘I’, and
(2) being taught in English classes not to write in 1st person.
In NZ, there’s so little grammar taught that few can discern any connection between (1) and (2), so they seem merely to be two separate, arbitrary ‘rules’ to commit to memory. And they’re colonialist, too — for some icing on it.
To avoid (1), many people replace ‘I’ or ‘me’ with ‘myself’. That seems common to most places. But in NZ, it is (2) which is fascinating. As a first response, to avoid 1st person some NZ students tried using the Royal ‘we’ rather than ‘I’. Their old professors laughed at the pomposity. And when it was pointed out that ‘we’ is still 1st person, but merely plural form, students flailed around for an alternative. In came ‘myself’.
Curiously, ‘myself’ rarely begins a sentence unless it’s part of a plural subject — eg, you do hear ‘Myself and colleagues are trying to answer…’. You don’t hear ‘Myself is trying to answer…’. But where etiquette puts the other people first, the new ‘rules’ around ‘myself’ let it precede the others — so, you’ll hear ‘myself and colleagues’ but not ‘colleagues and myself’ at the start of a sentence.
People who were students in the 1990s-2000s are academics now and have been teaching their own students the incorrect grammar. They think it is proper, scholarly English.
If I remember this correctly, the royal ‘we’ originally meant the monarch and God.
From https://www.etymonline.com/word/stake-holder —
So even the pre-woke abuse of the word to mean an interested party goes back only to 1965. Fie!
So the wokesters have assumed the etymology and are getting outraged at their own incorrect definition.
I too had always thought it related to gambling. Maybe that whole spiel about driving a stake in ground is completely made up.
“Storied” – which seems to mean something that is well-known, or historic, or frequently written about. It sets my teeth on edge. There was an example on this site last Friday, in a quote from Coleman Hughes’ article ‘The End of DEI’:
‘The most controversial part of this executive order is that it repeals the storied, 60-year-old Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.’
I wonder if it is so “storied” that it has become “bespoke.” I.e., story tellers tell and speak.
“Bespoke” means custom-made. A tailored suit is bespoke.
So are a lot of pronouns, these days…
For awhile my use of “Third World” in articles got pulled aside by an editor in one publication that runs my column.
I won that one when in 2022 the NYTimes reported that in their survey of naughty words 70% of those questioned/readers approved of it. 🙂
Which is good as most of my writing is about something to do with the third world.
My main two editors – of pretty lefty websites – accept it.
D.A.
NYC
Is there a 2nd world?
My understanding is that 2nd world refers to communist countries and 3rd world refers to countries not aligned with either of the other worlds.
Ah, okay. Thank you.
I was reading Graham Greene’s The Quiet American recently and the origins of the terms were discussed by characters in the novel.
Both American allied and Soviet bloc machinations focused on what they called a “Third Force” not allied with the Cold War belligerents. Thus the term made sense.
That is a great book.
Excellent question. It took me years of hearing “Third World” referenced in the media before, duh, “Second World” came to mind.
In certain situations “stakeholders” makes sense. Any given company has shareholders, employees, other businesses and their associates who do business with the first company, the surrounding community who might deal with the externalities like traffic, pollution, taxes, etc. of the first company, etc. All these stakeholders might be considered when an important decision is made by management.
“just between you and I”. It’s supposed to sound sophisticated, I suppose, but it’s bad grammar, period.
“Here’s an ask”. Why convert a verb into a noun, when there are already perfectly good alternatives, e.g., “request” or “question”?
Biz-speak needs to make the mundane and hierarchical sound simultaneously vivid and collaborative. When I say something is a big ask, I’m commenting (without appearing to object or undermine) on an order by the boss to increase market share in the face of competition from a better or cheaper product made by someone else…without making our own product better or cheaper because we are fundamentally uncompetitive, like Dilbert’s firm.
A request could be met with, “Sorry, no.” An ask cannot, because the boss didn’t mean it as a request. Even if the boss himself says, “I know this is a big ask…”, he’s merely empathizing, meaning, “Do this or else.”
You might be amused by this column:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-marriage-proposal-spoken-entirely-in-office-jargon
That is hilarious!
I was so happy for the couple at first but somehow I think the deal fell though. The symmetries never got operationized. 😢
Yep. And because I wanted to find out what they said next, I kept the fiction going:
GARY: Great. We’ll sync up tonight. Should we set an agenda?
CINDY: Let’s keep it high-level. I just want to ensure we’re aligned on key deliverables.
GARY: Deliverables like… getting married?
CINDY: That’s one option. But I’m more interested in exploring a framework for sustainable commitment.
GARY: So… marriage?
CINDY: Marriage-adjacent. A dynamic, evolving partnership with built-in flexibility.
GARY: Just to clarify—are we getting married, or are we launching a pilot program for companionship?
CINDY: Let’s not get bogged down in labels. The important thing is that we’re both engaged in the process.
GARY: Engaged, as in engaged? Or engaged as in “involved but legally noncommittal”?
CINDY: You’re getting it!
GARY: I don’t think I am.
CINDY: That’s okay. Let’s table this and revisit in Q3.
GARY: Cindy, Q3 is our wedding date.
CINDY: See? This is exactly why these check-ins are so critical.
Too funny. That’s perfect. Did I miss it or did they forget to use “unpack”?
😺 I’m still laughing.
It always irritated me when new administrators learned the jargon and started using it instead of communicating normally. Nurses who didn’t enjoy nursing would apply to become nurse managers, and quickly ascend the ranks, transforming as they went into someone who could not speak without larding their poorly constructed sentences with business speak. An example being that anything that was about to be implemented was ‘shovel-ready’ even if it involved no construction, and was, say, a reduction hours when the canteen was to be open. Of course, it may have been the case that it was ‘shovel-ready’ in that they were shovelling more horseshit on us.
Along the lines of a verb form where a noun would be expected, I am bothered by “send an invite” , “did you receive our invite?”, and the like. And here the normal noun form is related: “invitation”. This was given as a bad habit back when I was in Junior High School…
In sports, when a team advances to the finals or eg the Super Bowl, the use of “Punched Their Ticket,” really sets me off.
Another sports one bothers me, but less so: “The Bills control their own destiny.” I think not.
I would add “medaled” to refer to what happens when an Olympic athlete gets a medal.
Now I want to see a headline that says, “Quantum Mechanics Controls Bills Destinty.”
Most sportscaster colour chatter is just call and response to avoid dead air between commercials. It’s the rhythm of the sound, not the information transmitted. They could just grunt at each other for all it matters.
Key and Peele say it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BusChLgkLnA
get one’s ticket punched —
to die; to be killed. (Literally, to be canceled.) Poor Chuck got his ticket punched while he was waiting for a bus.
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/get+one%27s+ticket+punched
I agree that “stakeholder” should be banned. Vampires might find it triggering. Why, oh why does no-one ever stop to consider the feelings of the undead community?
And why, oh why does no-one ever stop to consider that “undead” means “born again”?
You need to get with the new lingo. Apparently it’s now ‘unalive’. I’ve seen many references to people who are trans ‘unaliving’ themselves. I thought it was a euphemism to hide that someone had taken their own life, but apparently a lot of social media suppresses the word ‘suicide’, so they invented a new word to get around it. Social media is killing the English language.
That’s my pet language peeve: “unalive.” It’s no longer reserved only for suicide. Now it’s replacing words like “murdered,” “killed,” and even “dead.”
“He was unalived in 2019.”
Wtsf.
Sounds like baby talk. The adult words are presumably being suppressed because they traumatize the vulnerable and trigger the traumatized.
+1
Just out of curiosity, what does the “s” stand for?
Serious? Screaming? Sodding? …
I hope it means “sodding”! Too fun!
Oh, FFS! Nothing is safe anymore.
The “unalive” thing is the fault of social media sites like YouTube who penalise the use of words like “suicide” on the grounds that if you use it in any context, you are obviously trying to encourage teenagers to top themselves.
We are being infantilised by social media.
I visit the Huffington Post website a couple of times daily, but only to see the screaming and outrageous headlines—especially the red ones in giant text. I rarely read an article there.
“Tech-bros” is starting to annoy me. But more annoying are using long words where short ones would suffice. “Utilize” for “use,” as Zane offers above, is a good example. So is “advancements,” of course. The entire genre—long words for short—seems to be an attempt at self-conscious erudition. In the old days of print journalism, where every character came at a cost of space, an editor might have intervened to keep it simple. But not today.
Sorry if I’m being prolix.
At least prolix is a short word🤓
Personally, I like the word and use it occasionally. But whenever I see it I can’t help but think of Nick Cave: “Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can’t fix!”
🤓
A friend who was an English grad school student many years ago taught me the word “sesquipedalian” and described it as a person/practice of using a five dollar word when a nickel word would do.
Reading that tripe about how “stakeholder” is offensive because it references driving a stake into the ground a la settlers in the 1800s makes me like it more. Indeed, the fact that it is considered offensive for that reason offends me and encourages me to use it more.
Some other word usage observations, not necessarily recent, but…
1) On home buying shows like “House Hunters,” the master bedroom is now referred to as the “primary” to avoid slavery connotations. I don’t necessarily disagree, even though I had never even made that association myself.
2) One commentator during the football playoff game yesterday (Chiefs-Bills) kept calling various players “studs.” I think he even called a former Cowboys coach a “stud.” I was glad I wasn’t playing the stud drinking game…
I don’t really care about substituting “primary” for “master”. Whatever. It’s more the process I am annoyed by.
In speaking of ordinary homes today, I don’t think this has much relevance and the substitution seems performative. Yet another example of a word being inventoried for possible grievances and demonized if any connection, no matter how tenuous or irrelevant to current meanings, can be made.
I can live with ‘primary’ but it grates when they talk of ‘one-and-a-half’ bathrooms. What’s the use of half of a bathroom?
” What’s the use of half of a bathroom?” Well, you can relieve yourself, and you can wash your hands. You just can’t bathe or shower.
Those have been around for a long time. My parent’s first house–bought ~1961–had a half-bathroom off of
the mastertheir bedroom.Those comments on ‘stakeholder’ are both hilarious and ridiculous.
It “comes across as corporate” because it is actually a common and legitimate term in business. Have these people never worked in the real world? None of those ‘options to replace stakeholder’ encapsulate the vast range of people who need to be involved in a project.
What the hell is a ‘man vibe’? I’ve been an outspoken feminist for more than half a century and I’ve never felt that stakeholder only refers to men.
‘Stakeholder’ depends on the context. I worked in IT for decades and it’s a common term when you are developing new systems. It’s a quick way of referring to everyone involved, the staff who will use the system, the customers, the programmers, the people who will pay for it etc etc.
Using the term ‘colonial connotations’ has colonial connotations, so perhaps they shouldn’t be using that term. At this rate, we will be left with no words. Perhaps that’s what they want.
“Do not bother to correct me” that isn’t my intention here, i’m just explaining how everyone in every office I have worked in uses this term.
One term that drives me bananas is the USA “Happy New Years”. That’s a plural, but it usually only refers to one specific year. I keep expecting to hear the word ‘eve’ or ‘day’ after it as in “Happy New Year’s Day” with an apostrophe.
Here we call New Year’s Eve ‘hogmanay’ but we’d never say happy hogmanays.
Maybe some kind soul could put me out of my misery by explaining to me what the American expression means.
Where is”here” for you? I’ve, thankfully, never heard Happy New Years in the US or Canada…yet😵💫
‘Here’ is Scotland. I’ve heard the term in many US films. I questioned it in a forum years ago and got short shrift from an American who defended it. The Grammarly website has an article explaining why it’s bad grammar.
Maybe I just hadn’t noticed it. I hate “anyways” as well.
Btw, I do love the way you Scots call everything “wee”, even if it’s a 250 lb. man😻
You are never too big to be your mama’s wee boy. 😉
Thinking about this since then, the only context I’ve heard it here is, “You doing anything special for New Year’s?”
Only overheard, mind you.
🤔 My barber did once say to me first week in January, “Hope you didn’t do anything special for New Year’s.” So obviously needing a haircut, I reassured him I hadn’t.
I don’t recall hearing or seeing “Happy New Years.”
But maybe it’s used by the same people who say “anyways.”
Don’t get me started on ‘anyways’ 😡 Or the bad use of ‘bring’ and ‘take’. Grrrr.
Okay, since you opened that door . . . for me, it’s the misuse of “fewer” and “less.” One doesn’t pour “fewer” milk into the glass, and one doesn’t eat “less” cookies. I’ll admit, in my unscientific observation, it’s most often “less” used where “fewer” is the correct choice.
I just did a web search on “bring” and “take,” and AI totally confused me. Here’s part of the result I got (again, this is AI generated):
“When to use either word
Either word can be used when it’s unclear or unimportant what the direction of the motion is. For example, “Bring the Merriam-Webster dictionary with you to the pub” and ‘Take the Merriam-Webster dictionary with you to the pub’.
The point of view of the speaker can also affect which word is used. For example, if you’re being asked to bring something to a party, you might say ‘I’ll bring the pizzas’ even though you’re actually going to take them”
In the first example, “Take” grates on my ear, while in the second example, “bring” seems right and “take them” sounds off to me.
It is what it is, I guess.
May/can are other words that grate.
When I used to say ‘can I have…’ my dad would always correct me and say, ‘yes, you CAN have, but you MAY not’. I read a while back though that the usage is changing, which seems daft to me, as we do need both words because they are not the same thing.
I was horrified to see that some dictionaries are literally redefining the word ‘literally’ to match the shocking misuse of it by the current generation. So ‘literally’ now means not literally. So another word we need is being erased.
Joolz, I live in the US and have heard it here. I recall receiving a text this year that said “Happy New Years” but I deleted it and can’t confirm whether it was missing the apostrophe.
As you suspect, it is not plural; it means New Year’s Day. This is simply what I believe the linguists call an ellipsis, in which a word is omitted yet commonly understood in context.
Some might think of an exception, but we don’t generally include the word “day” when wishing greetings on our major holidays. It is “Happy Thanksgiving,” “Happy 4th of July,” “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Easter.” The exceptions are those days in which omitting the “day” would sound ludicrous to a native speaker: Happy Memorial, Happy Veterans, Happy Mother’s, Happy Father’s.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if some people use “Happy New Year’s” other than on January 1st, much as one might say “Merry Christmas” to refer to a season rather than only to December 25th.
“if some people use “Happy New Year’s” other than on January 1st,”
Referring to the New Year you can still say ‘Happy New Year’ in December. Here we even say it in January if it’s the first time we are meeting someone that year.
If it’s not about the whole year, you need to specify. Happy New Year’s Eve/Day/Party. I don’t think you could really call it an ellipsis when it can refer to multiple things.
I find it odd that some add an ‘s’ when omitting it would be much clearer.
The one I keep hearing on local (and network!) hockey broadcasts is “as of late”. Even the proper “of late” is in my view better replaced with “lately” or “recently”.
Not high-falootin’ enough, I guess. They probably think they’re impressing someone.
I agree with you about the term dudebros.
But it’s OK for progressives to disparage men. It’s fashionable.
I see a surprising about of anti-male sexism online from women (and men). My urge is always to comment, “sexist much?” But I pretty much never do.
Sometimes, I comment, if the (execrable) phrase “mansplaining” is used: “Ad hominem fallacy noted. Do you have any points to make relative to the argument?”
“Reaching a crescendo” means pretty much the opposite of how it’s used by the illiterati. Drives me crazy.
And don’t get me started on “hit out at” or “hit back at” when you mean “responded with words”.
I don’t like “lived experience”.
Is there any other kind of experience? A dead experience?
What am I missing?
The newer “lived experience” grates on me, but “personal experience” doesn’t. Oh well.
“Lived experience” is a shibboleth indicating exclusionary membership.
This might be an obscure issue and only of interest to those of us who do their data analysis with R, but I’ve noticed that “deprecate” is now used to indicate “superseded” or “no longer in use” in documentation, for functions that have been replaced by newer, better functions that basically do the same thing.
Another example, I think, of one big word being used in place of another because they’re spelt sort of the same and it looks professional, if you don’t read a lot and can’t be bothered to check the dictionary.
Yes, that’s a very familiar use of “deprecate” in programming documentation, and by no means tied in with R in particular. In most cases where I’ve seen it, the deprecated construct will still work — for now — but you are put on notice that it’s a bad idea to use it in your code, as it is likely to become “unsupported” (will not work) in future versions of the language/platform/tool.
R is what I’ve been using exclusively for the past couple of years, with heavy reliance upon the documentation, and I’m sorry to hear that the word is more widely used in this incorrect sense. “Supercession imminent” or even “Won’t work much longer” would do the trick.
If you take the literal meaning, it sounds as though the function is being derogated. I suppose that we should be grateful that derogate wasn’t seized upon instead.
Correct. I’ve not seen the word much elsewhere.
I had lately been collecting funny reels from FaceBook, and here is one that seems appropriate enough.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1091736859201383
I LOVE this Mark, and I’m gonna steal it😹
Slang in all its forms. Cliches of any kind. Euphemisms that disguise the intellectually or morally suspect, particularly if the euphemism has become so cliched that people forget it is a euphemism.
Oh, and “Taylor Swift.”
And of course, “begging the question,” improperly used, is now a lost cause.
Not to me. You will never see me use it in the sense of asking a question or raising a question. NEVER!
Hear, hear. This is a vexation for me, like fingernails on a chalkboard.
It’s a lost cause because it seems to make more sense in the modern “incorrect” usage. The old ways aren’t always the best.
I have never heard a human under 40 use petitio principii in its proper sense. Outside of legal and philosophical circles, it’s basically linguistic folklore.
The definition of stakeholder seems to have been contrived to make some kind of social point. It completely ignores an old meaning of stake as “”that which is placed at hazard as a wager, the sum of money or other valuable consideration which is deposited as a pledge or wager to be lost or won according to the issue of a contest or contingency”. By this reasoning, the holder is the one who holds the bettors’ bets. Thus the common usage of stakeholder to refer to one who has “skin in the game”, e.g. a bettor, is incorrect.
Two words that I don’t like to be seen used interchangeably are “institute” and “institution”. Until a few moments ago, when I looked the words up, I thought that it was the placement of the term in a sentence that governed its usage as, e.g., “Chicago Institute of Correct Wording as opposed to “Chicago Word Usage Institute”. But it turns out that terms really have different meanings. One website put it succinctly as: “An institute refers to an organization or establishment that is focused on a specific field of study, research, or training. It is typically smaller in scale and more specialized in its activities. On the other hand, an institution refers to a larger and more established organization that serves a broader purpose, such as a university, government body, or social organization. Institutions are often more formal and have a longer history and wider scope of operations compared to institutes.” Thus “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” is correct while
“Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution” is, dare I say, problematic. I thought it was correct but it’s not; my problem.
I don’t mind problematic if used sparingly rather than as a weasel word when one is too lazy to explain the problem. The first time that I heard it was about fifty years ago when a music professor told me that a certain piece was problematic because it was in a key in which many horn players had difficulty playing. Without that coda, the statement would have been enigmatic.
Perfect, as often used by wait staff regardless of what you order. I’d like x. Perfect.
Plethora. Enough said.
What you just said means a lot. 😉
How about “outside of America” instead of “outside America”?
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
-Groucho Marx (probably – no source found)
In blog comments, any marked or sudden increase has become an ‘exponential’ increase, even when the rare, accompanying graph shows no such thing.
Our calculus will change, in that case.
😹
‘Quantum leap’ is another. It does not mean a big jump but a sudden jump of a standard amount. I suppose most people use the BIG connotation, but that is now how it is used in physics.
As one smart person (can’t remember who) put it: If you see the word “quantum” used outside of subatomic physics, it’s going to be weapons-grade bullshit. 🙂
Excellent important point.
The “Yale Integrity Project” (known fondly as the YIPpies) took great delight in castigating the Cass Review for referring “carelessly” to an “exponential rise” in adolescent referrals to the NHS’s main gender clinic through the early 2000s, to 2016. One of many troubles for YIP was, Cass’s published numbers did indeed precisely fit an exponential curve during the relevant period, with a constant percentage increase year over year, just like compound interest. Equivalently, a log-transformed plot gave a straight line to 2016, where it inflected as all real-life exponential growth eventually does. The YIP claimed in their white paper to have done such a log transform themselves to inform their snide debunking of Cass but they didn’t show their work.
This is important because exponential growth implies contagion, a possibility that gender activists are ideologically unwilling to consider for gender dysphoria because it’s transphobic.
Thanks for this; I was unaware!
A peer-reviewed paper presenting this as one of its many criticisms has just been published on-line:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2025.2455133
Critiques of the Cass Review: Fact-Checking the Peer-Reviewed and Grey Literature
Kathleen McDeavitt, J. Cohn & Stephen B. Levine
I hate the use of “out with”. I don’t remember seeing this word 20 years ago but now it’s everywhere.
I prefer ‘interested parties’ in place of ‘stakeholders’.
“Actually.” As in a reporter saying, “I was actually there.” As if someone might doubt that the reporter was there? Or that somehow someone is less there if not “actually” there?
“Handful.” As in a reporter saying, “a handful of states.” I suppose that that reasonably means a few-to-several states. I can only handle a handful of dirt I grab from one of a handful of states.
“Amount.” As in a reporter saying, “the amount of [as opposed to the number of] people.”
“Like.” As in a reporter referring to “states like” or “cities like” two or three mentioned states or cities. What are certain states or cities “like” as compared to other states or cities? And ads directed at “people like you.” How do you possibly know what I am “like”?
(I’ve heard all this on NPR, and perhaps PBS.)
I hate the use of the word”challenging” for what are actually “problems.”
That use of “advancements” for “advances” drives me bonkers. Thank you for pouring scorn upon it. I can remember when I first heard it: it was when I was using the Bally gym that was in the Loop, which puts the event in the 1990s. I heard it in a radio ad being played over the speakers: “incorporating the latest scientific advancements.” Of course, at the time, I thought it was an isolated incident of pretentiously inflated language. Little did I know that it was just the first instance to get my attention.
125 replies but nobody’s sick of Iconic?
I have two:
“learnings” instead of “lessons” – “we have a lot of learnings from this project”
And I heard a reporter say “the inauguration was attended by all the living former presidents” just so you know that no dead ones were there.
Similar to “The orchestra performed in front of a live audience”. Glad of that. could be smelly otherwise.
Live audience: as opposed to televised or on YouTube.
Try for less “officialese” and more normal speech using fewer words:
“is in need of” —> “needs”
“the fact that” —> “that”
“due to the fact that” —> “because”
“less than or equal to” ≤ —> “at most”
“greater than or equal to” ≥ —> “at least”
A comment on the first of your linked articles about stakeholders. It talks about prehistory being a no-no because the indigenous cultures had their own history before the Europeans arrived.
That may be true, but it’s not the point. “Prehistory” simply refers to the time before people started writing things down i.e. before there was stuff that historians could study. The prehistory of Great Britain, for example, didn’t end until the Romans arrived and started documenting the people who were here before them. “Prehistory” isn’t a pejorative term in the context.
Heard two women in my office discussing how they were going “out of pocket” for their vacations. I commented something like, “Of course you’ll be out of pocket for your vacations. Everyone is out of pocket for a vacation.” THEIR use of the term meant out of cell phone range. I just eye-rolled.
Other pet peeves: “Guac” is now on packaging instead of guacamole. “Pump” is now on pumpernickel bread. What’s next? “Past” for pastrami? “Moz” for mozzarella? “Crack” for crackers? “Pot” for potatoes?
I’ve also seen “out of pocket” for “out of control, a loose cannon”.
Sort of related is an apparent ambiguity in the theater-derived jargon “off book”. As I understand it, the original sense was when an actor, during rehearsals, finally has their part memorized and no longer needs to be carrying and referring to the “book”, the written script. But recently I think I have heard it (in broader contexts) used when someone departs from what is understood to be the team’s agreed positions. (Thus perhaps also becoming out-of-pocket.)
That used to be called “going off the Reservation”, which is now taboo for obvious reasons.
More and more, I see “cringe” used as a noun, or even adjective, as in “Matt Goetz is so cringe.” I shudder, though I do not cringe.
I will also neither use, countenance, nor acknowledge “impactful” as an adjective, no matter how often it’s used on the CBC or in The New York Times.
Impactful is out. Yes.
What do you think about “impact” as a verb? I believe it started during the space program: “Here are the closest ever photos of the Moon sent back by Ranger 7 just before it impacted the lunar surface.”
I want to say, “struck” or “crashed into” but this was no accidental collision, not like a ship “impacting” a bridge pier. The impact site was planned meticulously. So for this context I’m kind of OK with it, as language evolves. Should I be?