The Lake Superior State University posts its list of misused, overused and generally useless terms annually. Such words as "fiscal cliff" and "YOLO" are on this year's.

What would be on yours?

I'd quite like to banish the phrase "banished words".

Yes, I agree.

However, "fiscal cliff" has become quite annoying to us here in the U.S. We must here the term 30 times a day!

fiscal cliff....I know, right?

Tom, I've got to ask...what's the story behind your tagline?

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Tom, I've got to ask...what's the story behind your tagline?

I just thought it was funny when I saw it somewhere else. I'll probably drop, or change it soon. I know it will get kind of old.

Can't believe anyone actually fell for Tom's rather old joke. His profile doesn't have a location so I can't tell whether it's just old here in England but I suspect not.

I didn't even know it was an old joke. Oy vey. So gullible!

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
"YOLO"

Yolo is a county in California. Most of the canned tomatoes produced in the USA come from Yolo County. Aren't you thrilled to know that? Are you ready to axe the word now that you know this?
Besides, it's fun to walk down the street yodeling "Yolo, Yolo, Yolo..." Would-be muggers never bother people who do this.

I would banish "man cave" and "great room" (unless you live in a Newport mansion or Versailles).

The only real "man cave" is the one that comes as standard equipment in women. As for "great room," it should be "grate room," the room with the iron grates, i.e. the dungeon. It's the perfect room for real estate agents.

Methinks Proof may be an HGTV junkie like myself. I'm adding "open-plan" (another real-estate junk phrase) to the overdone word category, and my ALL TIME PET PEEVE: EN SUITE (or on sweet, ensuite, or however the h this poor excuse for a word is spelled!) Only in America-- excuse me, Canada where all these shows are cooked up-- does one try to market the utter overbuilding and materialism of bathrooms attached to every bedroom by slapping on a snobby French word! Oh, no, I need more bathrooms! All the French have them!

quote:

Originally posted by bethree5:
overbuilding and materialism of bathrooms attached to every bedroom by slapping on a snobby French word! Oh, no, I need more bathrooms! All the French have them!

Yet they never mention another French bathroom word, bidet. Some of the French have them.

The majority, I would have thought, but my favorite FL dictionary suggests $/sf in real estate is causing bidets to disappear.. perhaps some French should consider a move to Canada, so at least they'll have ENSUITES!

My wife is the HGTV junkie and I, by osmosis, inherit a lot of that verbiage. Another word from real estate that I abhor is "lanai" for a back yard in Podunk, East Overshoe, where there is not one item of vegetation that is in any way tropical or warm.

What's HGTV?

Home & Garden TV, based n the US magazine which makes every husband feel inadequate to fix up the family homestead to his wife's longings and ambitions.

I know these stress out our linguists here, but another phrase I don't like is when people tell you to just "move on." Depending on the situation, it isn't that easy, and who are they to tell you that anyway? And, really, what does it mean?

quote:

Another word from real estate that I abhor is "lanai" for a back yard in Podunk, East Overshoe, where there is not one item of vegetation that is in any way tropical or warm.

Whenever I hear "lanai," I always think of Jerry.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Can't believe anyone actually fell for Tom's rather old joke. His profile doesn't have a location so I can't tell whether it's just old here in England but I suspect not.

Mr. Hale,
I am sure it must be an old joke here as well. I have updated my profile to include my location (Pueblo, Colorado). I only recently saw that old joke and didn't remember it from before, but it is just too classic of a joke such that it must be old. I can't imagine the word itself being too long into the mainstream language that some wise-guy came up with the comment.

quote:

Originally posted by Tom:
fiscal cliff....I know, right?

For any that didn't quite catch my drift; I have tired of that phrase "I know, right?". After all, I know I didn't put in quotations nor even offer a smiley-face afterwards.

I guess I just tire of phrases that seem kind of clever at first, and then become so popular that you tire of them......can you dig it?

I'd like, you know, to banish the filler "you know" from conversations, especially those on radio and TV by otherwise supposedly educated speakers. During a discussion on WGBH Boston, one speaker couldn't finish a sentence without adding that term at the end, and also at several points, you know, in the middle, you know? Even worse is its cousin, "You know what I'm say'n?", which is often used in conversations where no one knows what the speaker is talking about, nor is he certain, either.

Maybe of one of these people, say the interviewer, could interject with "I know, right" every time the interviewee says "you know", they could both have a wonderful conversation that, you know, they both understand....

Then there's the filler "As I was saying" or similar. It's often used to preface the first answer in an interview, when the speaker has not said a word before.

I think all these fillers must serve a purpose--rhetorical probably--otherwise they would not exist. They're probably punctuation of a sort, which in speech one cannot see. An ad hoc speech without fillers is probably an empty one.

[Fixed typo.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

"Like" used to be just a filler, as in, "Like, wow, man" ('50's-'70's). Now we're stuck with it as a replacement for "said", as in, "I'm like yeah, and she's like, right". When did THAT start & how much longer must we wait for it to die??

Now we're stuck with it as a replacement for "said", as in, "I'm like yeah, and she's like, right".

Yes, like has become a quotative, along with go. (See link.) It's not confined to English. A quotative particle also exists in Sanskrit going back a couple of thousand years ago: iti. I think quotative go goes back at least to the '70s. I find these usages fascinating.

Archeologists have uncovered one of the first verbatim neanderthal cnversations:
"Ugh, ugh, like, ugh, you know, ugh, youknowwhatImsayn"

I suspect Cro-Magnon was similar, but with a French accent.

I have never minded the fillers all that much, as long as there aren't too many. Sixty ums a minute or like every other word can be too much, but otherwise I don't mind them.

Here is what happens when words get stygmatized.

Speaking off Banished English, here's one I hate: "based off" (often further complicated with"of") instead of "based on". I was resigned to it as youngadultspeak, but have spotted it creeping into essays in 'good' newspapers: BOO!

I've never heard that one. I agree with your Boo!