Three Words To Retire
I imagine this will be a recurring post theme for me (though I'm sure there are other folks out there making similar efforts). Let's start with three words that need to be retired from the English language: diva, luxury and maverick.
DivaGot a word on the verge of retirement? Let's send it away early! Leave your suggestions in the comments and we'll go from there.
A diva is an operatic prima donna. A diva is not the latest tramp to butcher R&B, soul or hip-hop conventions. Much of the blame for this forced retirement falls on VH1. Don't ever refer to a musician as a diva when she has just one or two releases to her name. In fact, don't refer to anyone as a diva -- odds are she's probably just an ordinary bitch.
Luxury
Luxury is a word, like diva, that carries very little of its original meaning in the ways it is most commonly used now. Chocolate is not a luxury; you can get it at any corner store or vending machine. Two small bedrooms and one bath do not add up to a luxury condominium, especially when there's no parking space included (let alone a chauffeur). To never again encounter any such abuse of the word "luxury" would, ironically, be very luxurious for me.
Maverick
I don't need to remind anyone of who's butchering this one, but it's clear the culprits are not the best-read people in the news today. A maverick is a lone, independent dissenter -- NOT the candidate nominated by the incumbent party, nor his Alaskan twit sidekick (who is, coincidentally, more likely to shoot a true maverick from a helicopter than ever embody the term herself).
4 comments:
I'd like to get ride of impactful (not really a word)and stakeholders.
Let's leave twit. I like that one.
I've always been against "impactful".
Ever since I had an impacted wisdom tooth, people using the non-word "impactful" sound clueless to me. They don't know what "impact" means as a verb, let alone that the use of "impactful" is a sign of ignorance. When I hear people at work saying, "we want to impact the brand", I think "these fools don't realize that would be a bad thing. You don't want a brand to be impacted - that means it's not getting through to people."
Stakeholders could be a fun one to poke holes in, too.
Keep 'em coming.
Chris B. reminds me of not a word but a phrase that needs to die a horrible, immediate death:
"It is what it is."
Whenever any nimrod says this, you can be sure that whatever it is, isn't. It's usually spoken by the same Einsteins who think it's possible to give more than 100%.
A "whole-nother." Nuff-said.
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