vendredi, avril 13, 2007

A Concerted Effort

There are a number of words and word combinations you have to stop using. Too many to name here. I'm willing to be patient with most of them, but the following must be stopped immediately.

1) "But yet . . . "
Don't you see? You can either say "but," or "yet." You can even say "And yet . . ." But when you put but and yet together it makes no sense whatsoever.

2) "Again . . ."
Many of the people people using this at the beginning of every other sentence, are not realizing that they aren't actually repeating an idea. In the event that you ARE using it correctly, I'd actually rather you just shut it down if you are just going to restate a previously elucidated idea for the third or fourth time.

3) "Concerted Effort"
You'll just have to look this one up to realize how ridiculous it is to say anything resembling "I am going to make a concerted effort." Or just apply this helpful hint: ONLY use it when you can replace the I with WE.

4) "The Bomb," "My bad," "It's all good," ETC.
Please understand: Your need to sound like an outdated Budweiser commercial is superseded by my need to never hear these phrases again.

5) "Touch base" (or bases)
(repeat the tag from number four, replacing "outdated Budweiser commercial" with "vaguely businesslike")

6) "Global Warming"
Yes, cumbersome as it is, because of exploitative erroneous connotations, you must now replace this "global warming" with the completely and undeniably more accurate: "Sadly Exacerbated but nevertheless inevitable and natural cyclical processes of climate change." P.S. the day I hear a group of passionate protesters, rhythmically chanting "Stop sadly exacerbated but nevertheless inevitable and natural cyclical processes of climate change!" will quite possibly be the greatest day of my life.

Thank you for your cooperation.

1 commentaire:

Kate a dit...

I'm truly sorry for any times I have used these incredibly offensive terms in your presence. I myself am a big fan of the frequently misused "concerted effort" term. While we are at this though, can we please eliminate "connected" or "connect" from our collective vocabulary? I'm so tired of hearing people say things like, "I would really like to connect with you on that topic this afternoon." There is no grammatical reason for this request, I'm just sick of it. Thank you.