Linguistic Hit List

Periodically, I take out (rhetorical) contracts on bits and pieces of the English language that need to be communally expunged. 

Every once in a while, it seems to work.  A few years ago, I demanded that the word “bloggy” disappear from the language.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen that linguistic abomination in print.

So it’s time for another round of linguistic executions. 

  1. “Internets”:  Usually used ironically – to show how very much more clever the user is than the madding hordes on the “internets” – the term is an offshoot of the ancient (in Internet terms) Usenet habit of taking a newbie mistake and making it part of the vocabulary (“This is sucks” – alt.aol.sucks, 1993).  The problem is, to be anything but ironic, these turnabouts are predicated on the user actually being more clever than the person committing the malaprop.  A casual reading shows this rarely to be the case.  Please stop.
  2. “Truthy” (“truthiness”): When everything is “ironic” all the time, then nothing is ironic.  And if we extinguished not only the word but the concept, perhaps John Stewart would be able to do something other than the same show, week in, week out, forever and ever, amen…
  3. “Dee di deeeee!”: Unless you are Carlos Mencia, using this phrase suits you better to be a target than a user of the phrase.  You’ve been warned.  Not Carlos?  No se va.
  4. Hel-looooo?”:  Time for a new phrase to indicate your nonplussment at your fellow human’s concentrated denseness (in your enlightened opinion).
  5. “It Is What It Is”: Like “going forward” and “at this point in time”, after about two trillion uses, It Is meaningless.

Carry on. 

7 thoughts on “Linguistic Hit List

  1. If Colbert didn’t coin the term, he popularized it. I’ve only seen a little bit of his oh-so-funny show (maybe I just don’t hate FOX and O’Reilly enough) and didn’t think it was worth the cultish following.

    As for “Internets,” I think that’s a reference to Bush in the Bush/Kerry debates in 04. He made a comments about rumors on “The Internets” saying he’d be reinstating the draft. Admittingly, it sounded a little silly at first. But then a bunch of 14 year old boys (and 14 year olds at heart) thought it was hilarious that a 60 year old President had more to do than figure out what they call multiple internet rumors. The irony that the Democrats are now the ones calling for the draft — while Bush hasn’t even mentioned it again — is apparently lost on the giggling fratboys.

  2. Kermit:

    [Al Michaels on]

     YES!

    [/Al Michaels off]

    Unless one actually is British…

  3. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Linguistic Hit List, Volume IV

  4. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Linguistic Hit List, Part IV

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