Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Semantics: A Rant

There's nothing to get me posting to a dormant blog again like finding myself unduly annoyed by overheard/read words and phrases. Here is a list of the most recent offenders:

factoid-- as in "Here are some neat factoids about pig farming." This one is more often found in kids' magazines and 1990s (or maybe even 1980s) lingo, but I've heard it once or twice in the past six months from the mouths of corporate wretches.

fab-- as in "Their apartment is so fab." Just say fabulous. Or better yet, "great." "Great" is kind of like "said"-- clear yet unobtrusive.

"wife" as a verb-- as in "I want to wife the girl from Slumdog Millionaire." This misappropriation takes the faint aggression of the outdated phrase "make her my wife" to a whole new level.

electrons-- as in "Send me the electrons of those documents when you get a chance." Electrons are particles, people! Just say, "Please e-mail me a copy."

From the vaults:

In high school I held out for at least two years against the rising tide of cute used to describe clothes, shoes, make-up or hair, as in "I love your bag! It's so cute."

Cute won.

(I still think it's okay to say a guy is cute, however. If this dates me, so be it.)

I know there are millions more annoying words... add yours to the list.

3 comments:

David H said...

Fab is okay if it's the Beatles. But only then.

According to the BBC an evolutionary biologist has determined the words "bad" and "squeeze" are words that will soon become extinct, and I started wondering how the heck am I going to get the toothpaste out?

And why bad?

Why an evolutionary biologist? I don't know.

Rion Amilcar Scott said...

I think I'm going to wife this post

Sara said...

Wife at your own risk