There is a whole slew of overused words and phrases that I collect along w/ my uncle and my mom. We have a real-live PIECE OF PAPER where we jot these down. Phrases like, "Have a good one," and "been there, done that, " and "from the get-go." And we also collect obituaries and weddings w/ obtuse or pretentious language. We have a folder for these. For instance, if your wedding reception menu included "prime rib," we will only talk nasty about you if you mention it was "chef attended prime rib." We do not care how it got onto your plate. And we also collect names that might appear a bit, ahem, ethnic-sounding. And we bend to no particular ethnicity. Any and all ethnicities will do. I have very recently made a whole lotta fun of some names in my children's new classrooms where there isn't a great lot of diversity. Sadly.
We are not bigots. Just tacky.
So, this week, my two latest cringe-worthy phrases, which are not new "to the radar," but have bounced wrongly off my brain matter, are "crunch the numbers," or "number-crunching" or anything having to do w/ preparing numbers so that they might be understood.
The other is to "ping" someone an email. I'll just "ping her an email and get her to crunch those numbers."
And, even as it may seem, I really don't have that much time on my hands. 'Swear. Totally.
Our next installment ... nouns that should never ever be verbs, i.e. "scrapbooking," or, oh my goodness, "cowboyin'." (THAT one deserves it's own post ... I kid you not.)
2 comments:
Add to that list "Cone of Uncertainty" ------ those three words excuse every single weatherman's inaccurate hurricane directions.
Thanks for the heads up!!!
M'el
Let's not forget dumb people (like my long-ago ex-fiance) who try to sound smart by saying "at this particular point in time" instead of "now." I also dislike cutthroat-sounding business terms like "pushback, blowback, deep dive (which actually sounds a tad porno), paradigm (shifting or otherwise), leveraging, worldwide domination, obscure industry-only terms...bleh!
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