Words and Phrases That Should Be Tortured and Killed

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Okay, I get it. Language is derivative; language is fluid and ever-changing, adapting to the times. Cool. Far out. Totally. Choice. Phonus-balonus (bet you don’t recognize this one, do you? It’s from the 1920s; means nonsense or, more colloquially, “bullshit.”). 


I also get slang, idioms, dialect, colloquialisms, and all the lingual variations that verbal communication implies. I understand that, like, the vast majority of us are not, like, linguists, or writers or, in these times of social media, even, like, literally, decent texters or bloggers. 


And I think it’s, like, a generally accepted fact of life and society— any society —that most people are, like, at best only okay talkers. Which is to say, most people talk like they drive: only aware of themselves, in a hurry and unconcerned with how they get there, careless, oblivious, ignorant of the “rules of the road.” Oratorically, they don’t care how air-headed they sound if the person they’re talking to gets the idea. ‘Long as you get your awesome point across, who cares if what you say or how you say it is less than amazing and gives your English teacher a peptic ulcer? You never liked that stuffy old crone anyway. Long story short, what I’m, like, literally trying to say— I’m not going to lie —is that if you can, like, speak and write without using these words and phrases improperly, or better yet, not at all, that would be, like, super awesome! 


So feast your orbs on these common, popular, assaults on critical thinking and clear communication and, like, STOP sounding like a clueless Millennial, Gen Z fop who’s just regained consciousness after having a large section of your prefrontal lobe removed. 


Now, pay attention, bro:


Awesome:  extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration. Returning my phone call, or adding extra pickles to my Quarter Pounder, or rescheduling my dental appointment is NOT awesome. A volcanic eruption is awesome. A nuclear explosion is awesome. A super nova is awesome. Awe-some: full of awe. Get it right!


Literally: this is an adverb, not another verbal stall. It means you’re stating something in the strictest sense— you’re saying something with the least possible chance or opportunity for your listener to misinterpret or wander away from the precise meaning you’re intending to communicate. For example, you might say “The pharmacy is literally right next door to the post office” if the pharmacy really IS right next door to the post office. But to say something such as, “I was literally, like, going crazy sitting in traffic” is, I’m sorry, idiotic. Well, unless you really were going crazy, in which case you should have wound up in a rubber room strapped into a strait jacket 


Amazing: See Awesome. To be amazing, somebody or something has to overwhelm you with surprise or sudden wonder. Generally speaking, no matter how good a kisser or smooth talker Biff is, these in and unto themselves do not make him an amazing man. On the other hand, if he is so strong that he can pull a railroad boxcar fifty feet down the tracks with his teeth, then he has amazing strength. Understand?


Journey: Please stop calling every mundane event you experience a journey.  A journey refers to traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time; it’s a physical trip from one place to another. Odysseus took a journey to Scyros to recruit Achilles for the Trojan War; Christopher Columbus took a long and perilous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to discover the Americas. Never mind that he missed by a thousand miles. That’s not the point. Your 2-years in braces is not a journey, it’s two years of orthodontic treatment. The only travel involved is the millimeters your teeth move.


Long Story Short: OMG, how annoying! The only thing you’re making shorter is the expression “To make a long story short.” But if you insist on uttering this obnoxious contraction before you regale somebody with your witty and engaging anecdote, do what you say you’re going to do: actually make the long story short!


I’m Not Going To Lie: I didn’t think you were going to, so why are you saying this? Were you planning on telling a lie, and your conscience suddenly got the better of you?


Forward: The word has an “R’ in it, people. The English language has worked very hard over the centuries to incorporate that “R” and its accompanying sound into the proper pronunciation of forward. It’s pronounced FOR-ward, not FO-ward. And don’t even get me started on Feb-BRU-ary!


No Problem: The automatic response these days, it seems, to a grateful person acknowledging your help or courtesy by saying “Thank you.” Say “You’re welcome,” or “Glad I could help,” or even that lame Chick-fil-A rejoinder, “My pleasure!”


You Know: Well, if you know I already know, why are you telling me I know? Unless you’re not sure if I know, in which case don’t use “you know” as a stall tactic while you try to remember the point you think you were about to make, but instead use it as a legitimate question in search of a legitimate answer. To wit: you want to be sure I actually do know, so you ask me if I know, the end result being that we both understand that we both know. You know? Thus, you say: “Blah, blah, blah, blah. You know?” And I say: “Yes, as a matter of fact I do know. Now, please. Do go on.”

And now for the, ta-da! Big One—


Like: Having the same characteristics or qualities as something or somebody; similar to something or somebody; to find something or somebody agreeable. Like is a verb used to show a comparison. It is NOT what linguists refer to as an “ungrammatical pause.” It is NOT a four-letter stall to be inserted after every third word of whatever it is you’re trying to say simply because your vocabulary bucket isn’t big enough to carry more than, like, a few hundred words. It makes you sound literally, so, like, unintelligent.


Now snap out of it! You feel me?

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