words and phrases due for retirement

It is usually a good practice to have your house in order before start shitting on your neighbours, lest you be shit upon yourself (I know there are more appropriate analogies, but they all seem so cliché). Criticizing writing can be a dangerous thing to do. If you do so and make a typo (something I may well be doing right now) then you look like an idiot. As haste and sloth often trump good editing in my writings here on aov, I am in no position to criticize. However, if we all just stood around waiting for someone without sin, some much needed stones would go un-thrown.

What follows is a collection of words and phrases that, after noticing how dumb they make people sound, I am striving to avoid using myself:

  • “First and foremost” – Often used by public speakers, primarily politicians, looking to create an artificial depth and emphasis. Although the alliteration is awfully alluring, this phrase has been robbed of any meaning it may have originally had.
  • “At this time” – Often used by amateur public speakers, this phrase is oddly prevalent in Church settings (“I’d like to call on the choir at this time”). I suspect that there are people who use this term while speaking in church but never in any other setting. This has always confounded me. If you remove the phrase ‘at this time’ from your sentence, it is no less meaningful.
  • “If you will” & “per se” – No, thank you. I will not.
  • “Nothing but respect” – I have nothing but contempt for people who usually use this term to artificially sweeten their sour criticism.
  • “Utilize” – See “use“.

For a more intelligent and less derivative position on clear writing see George Orwell’s article Politics and the English Language where he declares that “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”

 

44 thoughts on “words and phrases due for retirement

  1. “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”

    I don’t know. File under: maxims that sound impressive, but have little to say. Or: maxims that fail to follow their own advice.

    I’m trying to remember the reporter on CBC who used to say “at this current point in time.” You mean “now”?

  2. Oh, I so agree. I hate trite expressions almost as much as I hate those that will become trite as soon as a “suit” gets hold of it. However, contrary to my usual policy I subscribe to two maxims which are:

    1. Never use a big word when a diminutive one will do.

    2. Eschew obfuscation.

    (teeeheee chuckle!)

  3. I think it was John Kenneth Galbraith – the greatest Canadian who did not play in the NHL – who stated that there were no intellegent ideas which could not be put simply. Anthony Burgess of Clockwork Orange fame wrote an great text on plain english as well.

    Most irritating phrases:

    1. “24/7” – no one does it – if you did you would die within a month of sleep deprivation. Somehow does not have the moron-thought pit-wax connotation of “110%”. [I prefer to use “4.45/12” = each week of the month, each month of year. It means the same thing but is patently silly];

    2. “thinking outside the box” – anyone who says it is not.

    3. “world class” – anything that needs the advectival attachment is not.

    4. “Islander” – one major pet peeve is the use of this word [especially by CBC radio] to mean [at various times] human, human of fixed genetic heritage, human one gives a hoot about, resident, resident of scots-irish extraction, or any folk the term-user likes. [A verbal affliction of residents of any non-continuous land mass which is used without awareness of use by residents of all other non-contiguous land masses: see also “The Island.”] A new term needed to distinguish amongst Anticosts, Newfs, Capers, Tancooks, Machias Sealers, etc.

    Al

    PS I do not mind “per se” when used correctly – like “paradigm” – but over misuse has made them practically speaking beyond salvage.

  4. “there were no intellegent ideas which could not be put simply”

    This is just a mangling of Occam’s Razor, and is obviously false. I think it is wildly wishful thinking to assume that the simplicity of an explanation is in any way related to the use of the explanation. There are many ideas which are “intelligent,” but can not also “be put simply”.

    “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”

    Sincerity has nothing to do with clarity of language.

  5. After my drive in this morning, I thought, to be fair, perhaps I misquoted old JKG. It might be that he stated there were no such thoughts which could not be stated plainly. I do not recall where the quote sits but suspect his book “The Scots” as it is autobiographical. That being so, one can be complex and plain – Spinoza almost is.

  6. Matt, you said that:

    Sincerity has nothing to do with clarity of language.

    I have to disagree. While a sincere or insincere person can obviously speak clearly or otherwise, I think that insincerity does make for more fertile ground for unnecessarily complex language. We’ve all tried to mask our ineptitude or insincerity with complex language at some point. I’ve caught myself doing it in meetings before (always a bad sign).

    Due to Alan’s ‘grasshopper’ jab, I’ve realized that this website has an unusually high Guru-to-User ratio: Matt, Alan, Peter, Kevin, Dave, Rob – all gurus of their own odd domain. Come to think of it, my apartment has a high Guru-to-Person ratio too.

  7. Isn’t there a guru cross-presumption issue too? If we all think we are smarter than the next guy on a given matter, aren’t we all dealing with 100% gurufication? If gurufication is at 100% there is also no gurufication. Kinda one of those folds in the space time continuum things.

  8. i don’t know if it’s my contrary nature but i’m gonna agree with the notion that insincerity *is* the great enemy of clarity of language and, more to the point, meaning. my guess is in the context that george orwell was speaking was political. Bill sez “i did not have sex with Monica”. Couldn’t get a “clearer” sentence. But Bill’s insincerity is exactly what clouds the meaning. “She gave me head in the oval office,” said Bill, sincerely. Who cloud language with insincerity? Lawyers, advertising people, politicians, lobby-ists,— anybody trying to articulate a “version” of the truth when they’re doing their job. Who don’t– mathematicians, musicians, and artists and scientists when they’re doing their’s.

  9. I really hope ‘robust’ never goes out of style. It’s still rare enough that I can drop it and get wide eyed amazement with my mastery of English. Rob Scott (props need to be given) taught me the pure flexibility and suffix-stacking powers of it.

    “Yes sir, my software application will robustify the system via modular calls to robustification methods. Robust.”.

  10. Far as I am from defending lawyers as a habit, I must take issue with good lawyers clouding language through insincerity. Good law is a rhetorical art. Inevitably there are two sides to 95% of cases. The job is to persuade within the set of unknown facts or overlaping applicable legal rules [- like math, these can be rules that are obscure through their foggy pedigree as well as rare practical application.] Anything agreed is usually admitted jointly…by good lawyers. Insincerity is a flaw in a legal argument that most judges will pounce upon and evicerate you for. Use of sincerity and – a favorite word of mine in advocacy – “meaningful” argument is actually an easy tool to overcome a weak or ill thought-out argument of your opposite. The fact that it is a “tool” to me within my job, however, may bolster your view, Dave.

  11. When we indetify someone as “sincere” do we mean they are telling the truth, or do we mean they believe they are telling the truth?

  12. What is behind you asking? (joke).

    I wonder if sincerity has become so demeaned by the age of irony that we can no longer recognize it. For me, I would think that it should be used as the honest belief that what you are saying is so. It does not relate to the fact being conveyed but ernestness in the validity of the fact. A person can be sincere. A fact cannot.

  13. First: It’s always fun to read the dictionary. This is from Merriam Webster online.

    sin·cere
    Pronunciation: sin-‘sir, s&n-
    Function: adjective
    Inflected Form(s): sin·cer·er; sin·cer·est
    Etymology: Middle French, from Latin sincerus whole, pure, genuine, probably from sem- one + -cerus (akin to Latin crescere to grow) — more at SAME, CRESCENT
    Date: 1533

    1 a : free of dissimulation : HONEST b : free from adulteration : PURE

    2 : marked by genuineness : TRUE

    – sin·cere·ly adverb
    – sin·cere·ness noun

    synonyms SINCERE, WHOLEHEARTED, HEARTFELT, HEARTY, UNFEIGNED mean genuine in feeling. SINCERE stresses absence of hypocrisy, feigning, or any falsifying embellishment or exaggeration .

    Second:
    To Alan, I hasten to point out that I included myself in the list of possible enemies to clear language. And like you, i think, that I’ve yet to meet a person in my industry who believes that they have ever lied or committed any acts of dissimulation. That said– baby — the sins of omission! Lately, I have been feeling a sense of corruption touching so many things.

    Including my own business.

    We’ve never been working harder and it’s never been tougher… not even in the early going. There’s a desperation “out there” that , in the past, I might have romanticised or ignored. I’m finding it harder to do lately. I’m finding good clients are harder to find. I’m not talking about dollars either. It’s about trust. It’s coming up on seven years for my biz and a change is gonna come. i’m working up what i hope will be a *sincere* atonement and penance.

  14. Then…if facts are unclear, use of rhetorical skill is not insincerity but persuasion. If known facts are ignored and the opposite is stated or, as Dave says, omitted, then we are into in sincerity. How does this reflect on the phrase “enemy of clear language being insincerity.” Rhetorical persuasive language can be clear but still not based on 100% known facts. The avoidance of known facts in writing for advantage is exemplified by obfuscation and is a form of insincerity. Matt says “sincerity has nothing to do with clarity of language.” But if meaning is being hidden – by tricks or skill of language or factual deception – is that nothing other than unclear, insincere writing even if on the surface clear enough in the words themselves? Can writing be so distinguished from the quality of the thought it conveys?

  15. I should have said that sincerity and clarity of language are not necessarily related. I overstated my point.

    You can be absolutely insincere, and not resort to the “long words and exhausted idioms,” that Orwell is so concerned about. I think Bill’s statement quoted above is an excellent counter-example: “I did not have sex with that woman.” He is being insincere, and depending on your definition of “sex” he also is being dishonest, but his insincerity doesn’t muddy his words. He could not have been any clearer.

    I am very strongly against the idea that an artist, of any kind, is doing his/her job by being sincere. If Lennon wasn’t sincere when he wrote “Imagine” it doesn’t mean anything less to someone who hears it and agrees or disagrees with it. An artists sincerity, what they intend by any piece of work, is interesting, but not essential.

    Was Di Vinci doing his job as an artist when he painted the Mona Lisa? Surely we can say yes, though we don’t know what he intended by his work, or whether he was sincere in its creation.

  16. Well, that is interesting because I was going to say after I thought about my last post that fiction is essentially a rhetorical form of writing as well. As the writer is trying to convince the reader about the legitimacy about what is being presented even though it is false, there is a measure of persuasion. The skill is both in the creation of the false world and hiding its falsity. Lennon may well have been duping through banal syrupy dreaming – I doubt it but he could have through skill. Blake has a pair of poems on religiousity which take opposing views equally well – those canny Swedenborgians. [By the way, while I have really only seen the back of the heads of hundreds of tourists between me and Mona, I think that DiVinci was sincere in that work but the message was, in part, uncertainty.] Sincerity may not be sufficient a word to cover what an artist does, but the quotation that sparked this was about language not art. “Can clear meaning be conveyed through words if the speaker or writer is not sincerely intent on being clear regardless of his or her personal belief in the content?”: maybe that is what Orwell was addressing. Not nearly as pithy a quote.

  17. Hi there…long time reader, first time poster.

    As one of my professors once said: “If you’re really as smart as you say you are you can write in a way that just about anyone can understand. There are plenty of academics out there that claim to know their shit, but if they can’t express it clearly it doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

    Big ideas don’t have to be expressed with big words.

    For the record, saying “rhetorical persuasive language” is redundant. By definition rhetoric is persuasive, or at least attempts to be so. In effect you’re saying “persuasive persuasive language.”

  18. Welcome Ben – disagree Ben. They are close but different. Non-rhetorical language can be persuasive and rehetoric can be non-persuasive. There are no true synonyms in the English language – I didn’t say that! Sammy Johnson did!

  19. Can you give me an example of rhetoric that’s non-persuasive in its intent?

    What are you using as your definition of rhetoric?

  20. Rhetoric can persuade or assert according to the Oxford dictionary. When the Pope gives a sermon to cardinals he does not have to persuade them – he is reasserting tenents.

  21. Welcome Ben. Good points. By the way, are you the Ben Wright (as in the i-dated-your-sister/plays-the-trumpet/appreciates-Moxy-Fruvous Ben Wright)?

  22. Language without strict attention of detail is … conversation!

    Steve, I was hoping it was Ben Foulds.

  23. Yes Steve, you dated my sister, who’s now married, and I did play the trumpet. I also appreciate(but rarely listen to) Moxy Fruvous.

    Alan- What is the Pope trying to do when he reasserts tenents? He’s telling them (or dare I say it…persuading them) to keep believing. Reinforcing beliefs is a form of persuasion, which in turn is rhetorical.

    On an unrelated note, I have a bone to pick with Ben Folds. I spent the last two academic years in Winston-Salem, NC. You know that song where Ben is in the hospital and he says “Silas Creek Parkway is my only view?” I lived the on the next road over. He used to play at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem all of the time. In fact, bits of Ben Folds Five’s live album were recorder there. So I like I was saying, I lived there for 2 years and he didn’t play there once! So I graduated, moved back to PEI, and guess who played at Ziggy’s last week?

    Thanks for nothing Ben Folds. We all know you’d be nothing without John Mark Painter anyway, right Steven?

  24. Ben baby, you are using the “cook the potatoes how ever you want they are still potatoes” logic. Ignoring the specifics makes every thing the same. What that fancy assed US book learning do you for any way? Too bad about the Folds concert. I have a similar story about Glace Bay, Matt Minglewood and a six-pack…

  25. Ben, it’s great to hear from you. Your sarcasm intelligence will do well to fan the flames of our little concersations here on aov.

    And for the dumb and confused, the John Mark Painter that Ben refers to is the John of super-cool-but-never-famous band Fleming & John. They are also from the colder Carolina and are chummy with Mr. Ben Folds. They once accompanied Ben on a bizarre William Shatner spoken word performance on the Conan O’brien show.

    Could we have a show of hands of who owns a signed copy of their first CD please.

    (you can see it but I’m actually raising my hand)

    Also, Ben, I think it’s only fair that you know that Alan is a lawyer.

  26. In fiction “the writer is trying to convince the reader about the legitimacy about what is being presented even though it is false.”

    (Sorry, to keep quoting things, I don’t know a better way to do this.)

    Again, this can be true, but isn’t necessary. Metafiction often makes a point of showing the reader the ways in which a text is “false”. Robbe-Grillet, whom I loathe, decided that because all fiction is essentially psychological drama in one form or another, that he would write stories which offer no psychological insight concerning the characters or their motives. The stories are also completely non-linear and fragmented, there isn’t any real “plot” to fall back on. The idea is that it’s ultimately the reader who decides on meaning. Dadaists purposely created random works of art – people still found meaning in them.

    Art is subjective. Eye of the beholder and all that nonsense.

  27. I may be tarred with the job…but jeeze…I don’t think I meant to be quite as rude as that Glace Bay line might have been taken…I do get a little argumentative, Ben.

    Matt: I haven’t got a clue what metafiction is – few things splapped with the prefix “meta” do – but what you are describing is very similar to a book from about 200 years ago by Laurence Sterne which was a reaction to the form of the novel in which he makes fun of the suspension of disbelief and the dramaticization of life. One page is fully inked, for example, to describe night. On my tour of the modest taverns and art galleries of Europe 15 years ago now, I go to see some Dadaist stuff – the stool with the bicycle wheel, the urnal placed eight feet up the wall – and that is the same thing. Meaning is there though the conventions of “clarity” within the form are all messed up.

  28. There’s nothing wrong with a good argument, and french fries are still potatoes.

    One of my petpeeves is the misuse of the word “rhetoric” and one of my hobbies is debating. Toss the two together and I can go on for hours.

    Rhetoric happened to ne my field of study by the way.Of course, given the way academia works rhetoric and communication is a fractured (and broad) field and I was biased by the views of those I studied under.

    And since Steve started the hand raising…raise your hand if your name appears in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Rhetoric.

    Yup. That’s my hand in the air.Sure, all I got was a mention from my advisor, but it’s still my name in cold black print.

    Nice to meet you folks. Good to “talk” to you again Steve.

  29. Another one for the list…

    Quietly confident – If you’ve written/typed/said that, you’re not being quiet about it.

  30. And yet another word/phrase: “and whatnot…” I’ve heard this obvious conversational crutch so many times it makes me giggle every time I hear it now.

  31. I found the following inclusion i nthe Lake SUperior University list odd:

    BLACK ICE — From the weather and news reports. Ice is ice. Watch your step. “Ice is usually clear and shiny when you see the black pavement through it.” Robert Irving, Tahoe City, California.

    This is simply incorrect. If there is no light behind the ice from the perspective of the viewer there is no “shiny”. Probably Bobby Boy never bought winter treads.

  32. Rhetoric: used to be seen as the art of persuasion. However, in the past few years rhetoric as a word has grown in definition, like so many words in English.

    Trying to force a word like rhetoric into one use or definition is useless. Words have meaning because we give them meaning. They are arbitrary symbols made up of phonemes and, physically, lines and scribbles.

    A word means something (or various somethings) because that’s what people think it means, whether one person or a whole country likes it or not.

    Theory aside…one “word” I think should be retired (should never have gotten the job in the first place): irregardless.

    Nuff said.

    I hesitate to make any judgements on words and language because it’s like a living, breathing organism. It shifts, morphs, dies a little, dies completely.

    Aside from that, I agree with Orwell. People have been trying for years to improve on this article and few have done it. It remains a guide for debate and study (along with McLuhan) for communication and rhetorical theory.

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