Consumerist

Two words I hate to see people either overuse or use incorrectly are:
Utilize and Monies

And the phrase I hate the most? 'Each and every one of you"

In the vein of use→utilize, I hate seeing method→methodology, category→categorization and set→space.

The post uses the word obtruse, which I guess is a clever new word for obtuse+abstruse.

"What we have here, is a failure....to communicate." (from 'Cool Hand Luke.')

It is not only 'big words' that separate us, it is also the style and intent of the sentences we write and utter.

Lawyers use legalese, for example, which is not just 'big words' but also confusing phrases and misleading compound sentences. For many attorneys, it is their stock in trade.

The medical world is hardly any different. Instead of clearly decipherable plain English that can be understood by a typical person, many doctors hide behind jargon that has one's head spinning quickly.

There are other examples, I am sure, but the point is clear: increasingly, we have a failure to communicate.

"That being said" makes me cringe. They're not big words, obviously, but the frequency at which I see this phrase in blogs and forums drives me insane.

Separate yourself from the pack by omitting this phrase from your writing!

@homerjay: Strunk and White have simply this to say about 'each and every one': "Pitchman's jargon."

Arguably writers like Kerouac, Henry Miller, and Hemingway (or somebody like, gawd, James Frey) are also trying to signal their connection to "the real" by stripping their language to the bone.

But let's not get carried away: ornament in language serves many purposes beyond advertising class allegiance. So does the lack of ornament.

@notlazyjustdontcare: Ooh! I hate "commentating."

No, jackasses. Commentators COMMENT. They do not COMMENTATE.

(Commentator itself doesn't bother me as much but we could just go with commenter.)

Has anyone here ever read TTOTLC? Veblen is hardly in a position to castigate anyone on the topic of sesquipedalian obscurantism.

The introduction to The Economist Style Guide says:

Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible. Keep in mind George Orwell's six elementary rules ("Politics and the English Language", 1946):

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Good enough for me

@jburland:

Number 2 seems prone to being overdone. Never use A long word where A short one will do. When a long word substitutes for several short ones, the "why you gotta use big words?" crowd can cram it up their asses.

Oh, words I hate... "irregardless" is utterly worthless... well, any double negative is a pain in the backside.

@jburland: I do admit, however, to breaking rule #2 when it will serve me to keep people from feeling like they're superior to me. Now & then I'll drop a "Five Dollar Word" in an email or in a meeting to keep the few narcissistic ego-trippers in line because I know they have no clue what I'm saying... but they're afraid to ask what a word means and look like dolts.

And for rule #5, completely agreed... steer clear of tête-à-tête when you could just say "private meeting" or something like that. (or use tête-à-tête as a weapon against the ponces in the office who don't know what it means... just for fun)

A quick movie quote about "irregardless" I found that made me laugh (from a favorite of mine, The Hebrew Hammer)--

"I guess I could be chalant about it, but then again I'm not even so sure if that's a word. Listen Chief, we could stand around arguing all day, making up words like chalant and irregardless, but I gotta case to crack."

@TechnoDestructo: Yeah, it also ignores that words have shades of meaning and sometimes you WANT the long one because of its connotative meaning rather than its denotative meaning.

And I get so sick of that "Don't use passive when you can use active" crap. Don't use passive when it's not appropriate. When it's appropriate? Active is simply no substitute. "Mistakes were made" is infinitely better than "various unnamed people made mistakes" as weasel language.

And typically jargon words are there because there's no "everyday" equivalent. (I run into this a lot when I teach my professional ethics classes, because I want to use technical philosophy words that have very exact meanings and say what I want to say, and I end up fumbling around for a way to express it in everyday language.)

And finally, since I'm on a roll, people who say "If you can cut out a word, you should" fail to understand one of the true beauties of the English language, which is redundancy for emphasis: "Null and void." Most of those come from legal language where both the English and the Norman French had to be used because the judges all spoke Norman French and the criminals all spoke English. :) It's an absolutely valid way of marking emphasis in English, and it's an important rhetorical strategy in both speaking and writing.

I think a lot of these people with all their "make language all spare and boring" rules just don't like English very much. THPBPBPBT.

Is this post helping us as consumers? Or is it just an advertisement for some guy's blog?

BTW - Commentators commentate. That's what they do. I suppose if you're not a subject matter expert, you comment; this then makes you a commenter.

@methane: They do not and when I edited a newspaper they certainly never did on the pages of MY paper. Commentate is a stupid word. (And, yes, it's a back formation. Commentators comment. Only later did they start "commentating." It's not just a back-formation, it's an ear-gratingly illiterate one.)

At the end of the day, synergistic verbal interfacing is impacted by argotic utlization. At the present time, it is well known that inauspicious syntax can cause idiopathic kerfuffles.

Seriously, Theory of the Leisure Class is all you need to know about American society. Everything else is just commentary.