With the advent of each new year we contend with "lists." Lists of resolutions, hopes, predictions, trends, the most important people/books/movies/technological innovations of the last year etc. The wordsmiths too go to work with lists of new words and expressions that enter our vocabulary. This year I found a list of nineteen words and phrases compiled by AP writer Jeff Karoub who wants them banned in 2008. (As it happens, wordsmith is one of them)
The List (and comments by readers who voted for the ban)
PERFECT STORM – "Overused by the pundits on evening TV shows to mean just about any coincidence." – Lynn Allen, Warren, Michigan.
WEBINAR – A seminar on the web about any number of topics. "Yet another non-word trying to worm its way into the English language due to the Internet. It belongs in the same school of non-thought that brought us e-anything and i-anything." – Scott Lassiter, Houston, Texas
WATERBOARDING – "Let’s banish ‘waterboarding’ to the beach, where it belongs with boogie boards and surfboards." – Patrick K. Egan, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
ORGANIC – "Overused and misused to describe not only food, but computer products or human behavior, and often used when describing something as "natural," says Crystal Giordano of Brooklyn, New York.
WORDSMITH/WORDSMITHING – "I’ve never read anything created by a wordsmith – or via wordsmithing – that was pleasant to read." – Emily Kissane, St. Paul, Minnesota.
AUTHOR/AUTHORED – "In one of former TV commentator Edwin Newman’s books, he wonders if it would be correct to say that someone ‘paintered’ a picture?" – Dorothy Betzweiser, Cincinnati, Ohio.
POST 9/11 – "’Our post-9/11 world,’ is used now, and probably used more, than AD, BC, or Y2K, time references. You’d think the United States didn’t have jet fighters, nuclear bombs, and secret agents, let alone electricity, ‘pre-9/11.’" – Chazz Miner, Midland, Michigan.
SURGE – "’Surge’ has become a reference to a military build-up. Give me the old days, when it referenced storms and electrical power." – Michael F. Raczko, Swanton, Ohio.
GIVE BACK – "This oleaginous phrase is an emergency submission to the 2008 list. The notion has arisen that as one’s life progresses, one accumulates a sort of deficit balance with society which must be neutralized by charitable works or financial outlays. Are one’s daily transactions throughout life a form of theft?" – Richard Ong, Carthage, Missouri.
‘BLANK’ is the new ‘BLANK’ or ‘X’ is the new ‘Y’ – In spite of statements to the contrary, ‘Cold is (NOT) the new hot,’ nor is ’70 the new 50.’ The idea behind such comparisons was originally good, but we’ve all watched them spiral out of reasonable uses into ludicrous ones and it’s now time to banish them from use. Or, to phrase it another way, ‘Originally clever advertising is now the new absurdity!’" – Lawrence Mickel, Coventry, Connecticut.
BLACK FRIDAY – "The day after Thanksgiving that retailers use to keep themselves out of the ‘red’ for the year. (And then followed by "Cyber-Monday.") This is counter to the start of the Great Depression’s use of the term ‘Black Tuesday,’ which signaled the crash of the stock market that sent the economy into a tailspin. – Carl Marschner, Melvindale, Michigan.
BACK IN THE DAY – "Back in the day, we used ‘back-in-the-day’ to mean something really historical. Now you hear ridiculous statements such as ‘Back in the day, people used Blackberries without Blue Tooth.’" – Liz Jameson, Tallahassee, Florida.
RANDOM – Popular with teenagers in many places. "Over-used and usually out of context, i.e. ‘You are so random!’ Really? Random is supposed to mean ‘by chance.’ So what I said was by chance, and not by choice?" – Gabriel Brandel, Farmington Hills, Michigan.
SWEET – "Youth lingo overuse, similar to ‘awesome.’ I became sick of this one immediately." – Gordon Johnson, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
DECIMATE – Word-watchers have been calling for the annihilation of this one for several years. "’Decimate’ has been turned upside down. It means ‘to destroy one tenth,’ but people are using it to mean ‘to destroy nine tenths.’ – David Welch, Venice, Florida.
EMOTIONAL – "Reporters, short on vocabulary, often describe a scene as ’emotional.’ Well sure, but which emotion? For a radio reporter to gravely announce, ‘There was an emotional send off to Joe Blow’ tells me nothing, other than the reporter perceived that the participants acted in an emotional way. For instance: I had an emotional day today. I started out feeling tired and a bit grumpy until I had my coffee. I was distraught over a cat killing a bird on the other side of the street. I was bemused by my reaction to the way nature works. I was intrigued this evening to add a word or two to your suggestions. I was happy to see the words that others had posted. Gosh, this has been an emotional day for me." – Brendan Kennedy, Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.
POP – "On every single one of the 45,000 decorating shows on cable TV (of which I watch many) there is at LEAST one obligatory use of a phrase such as … ‘the addition of the red really makes it POP.’ You know when it’s coming … you mouth it along with the decorator. There must be some other way of describing the addition of an interesting detail." – Barbara, Arlington, Texas.
IT IS WHAT IT IS – "Only Yogi Berra should be allowed to utter such a circumlocution." – Jerry Holloway, Belcamp, Maryland.
UNDER THE BUS – "For overuse. I frequently hear this in the cliché-filled sports world, where it’s used to describe misplaced blame – i.e. ‘After Sunday’s loss, the fans threw T.O. under the bus." – Mark R. Hinkston, Racine, Wisconsin.
"Please, just ‘blame’ them." – Mike Lekan, Kettering, Ohio.
Although I don’t much care what words and expressions others use, I take great interest in the evolution of the common parlance. If I don’t like a word or expression, I just don’t use it but I don’t get all riled up if others have annoying speech patterns. I don’t think I have ever seriously considered banning linguistic irritants even when certain words and phrases make me wince or smirk. One such "non-expression" devoid of any meaning (like "It is what it is,") is "That’s a good question!" – usually uttered in a ponderous tone of voice accompanied by the shadow of an approving nod. Translated, it always means, "I don’t know the answer." May be I would ban that. The other phrase which I have wished to see disappear for the last seven years is "The Bush Administration." Alas, although I know it will be officially retired at the end of 2008, we won’t be rid of it for a long time due to the stench it will leave behind. I hope it will not be replaced by another scary term – "The Clinton Administration."
Accidental Blogger 
9 responses to “Well, It Is What It Is”
I have a sneaking fondness for “It is what it is” myself, and vigorously oppose banning it on that account.
Seriously, this list is more of a insight into the pet peeves of a few commenters regarding the evolution of language over the last year(s), rather than a persuasive diatribe against failed phrases.
“AUTHOR/AUTHORED – “In one of former TV commentator Edwin Newman’s books, he wonders if it would be correct to say that someone ‘paintered’ a picture?” – Dorothy Betzweiser, Cincinnati, Ohio.”
It would be perfectly correct to say “He authored a picture”- remember Turner’s use of the phrase Ms. Betzweiser ( who sounds as though she might have a coronary if she hears the term Ms. applied to her) is evidently going by a fairly dated playbook.
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I’m irked. (Oh, and Happy New Year everybody!) A friend and I, over a really smooth single malt Scotch–Oh, no! I bet Karoub will add that to his list, too.–discussed this issue on New Year’s Eve. We particularly addressed decimate, for instance. Look, OED illlustrates the abuse of this term as early as 1875, if not earlier. Folks, language has a healthy figurative function! If we demanded etymological fidelity from every word, we wouldn’t be able to use words like…demand! (L. demandare to give in charge, entrust, commit (f. DE- I. 3 + mandare to commission, order)). Why, now, is Karoub griping, albeit by pointing out that others have long complained about it? As for author, Sujatha is on the money. OED finds a verbal occurrence in Chapman’s Homer, 1596.
My friend–the one with whom I was enjoying the really smooth single malt Scotch–is vehemently opposed to icky grammatical constructions of this sort: “That’s between my friend and I.” Nothing figurative here, not a deliberately catachrestic turn of phrase, just plain old ignorance, likely due to inadequate schooling.
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Yet when people say “Between you / my friend and I,” they are attempting to sound “well schooled,” confusing it with the long ago class room admonition to not use “me” as the subject pronoun when they should say “I.”
I have similar issues with those who use “whom” in the wrong place. For example, “Whomever may win the elections.” Wrong. “Whomever you may vote for” but “Whoever may win the elections.” But I still wouldn’t ban it except in scholarly papers. Ungrammatical usage adds color and eccentricity to language.
And Dean, what irks you? Why didn’t you post the story after the smooth single malt wore off? All the hard work comes down to “I.”
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Whom is a dead word to me, so that one’s easy. But I do sometimes screw up I and my. I wouldn’t blame “inadequate schooling,” but unlike Dean, I never really studied grammar. I’m sure I could figure it out if I were writing a formal paper, but spoken conversation isn’t exactly conducive to puzzling out whether a certain construction is going to require one word or the other.
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Joe’s admission that whom is a dead word says a mouthful. There’s something of a merely generational, as opposed to educational, explanation at work here, obviously, since Joe clearly falls far outside the inadequately schooled demo. I never “really” studied grammar, either, by the way, although my friend who bristles at the objective/subjective mix-up with pronouns does have a Ph.D. in English. But if Joe doesn’t automatically ask, “With whom do you dance on Friday nights?,” rather than, say, “Who do you dance with on Friday nights?,” then this is a sign that declining the pronoun is indeed a moot enterprise.
I think Ruchira’s right about the attempt to sound “well schooled.” Ironically, of course, lots of folks do use objective declensions of pronouns in the subject position these days, seemingly more so than before: “Me and her went dancing last Friday night.”
By the way, I don’t like dancing. I prefer really smooth single malt Scotch. And I’m always irked, anyway. In any event, I confess I did coin a phrase of the “X is the new Y” variety in response to a remark by a friend, who is approaching 50, that “Fifty is the new thirty.” I disagree. Eighteen is the new thirty.
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Dean: you should give us an educational post on Scotch one of these days! What’s the difference between a single malt and the other types? Is it like wine, where the particular region of Scotland can have a big influence on taste? Why is Irish whiskey so popular these days? Etc.
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in response to Dean’s comment “But I still wouldn’t ban it except in scholarly papers. Ungrammatical usage adds color and eccentricity to language.”
Personally, I think that gives us a great reason to not just allow but promote ungrammatical language in scholarly papers. If there’s one thing that scholarly papers sorely need, it’s color and eccentricity.
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one trendy phrase the irritates me because it’s trendy but also because it’s used incorrectly: “begs the question”. it has caught on in the last year or two, i think. what bugs me most is that it’s used to mean almost the opposite of its established meaning, which is/was: to not really answer the question. it does not NOT mean: raise the question.
check this out (not mine): begthequestion.info
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to those of you who are irked by finding out that you’re using words and phrases incorrectly: more power to you! ignorance is bliss, they say. soon we’ll probably all be talking like you.
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