The list of overused words and phrases for 2007 is out... "Surge," ""perfect storm," "webinar," even "post-9/11" all made the list. And it's not just words; phrases like "give back" and "______ is the new _____" (as in green is the new black) are so last year, too. The public relations department at Lake Superior State University in Michigan come up with the lists every year, rummaging through a couple thousand submissions of cliches and well-worn phrases. And they give special attention to us media types... Reporters use terms like "emotional", or "decimate" too often, and often incorrectly. The list also throws sports writers who use the phrase "thrown under the bus" under the bus. My favorite, though, may be one that I use myself a bit too often: "it is what it is." The list-makers point out (correctly) that it's completely pointless. All you wordsmiths (another term on the list) out there, what words or phrases are you tired of hearing?
"so last year" is so two or three years ago.
I'm very tired of these phrases, sentences, terms: "At the end of the day..." "I don't recall." "i-anything, e-anything" "all-important finger" (regarding celebrity gossip) "reality-anything" "bling" and any variation, "like" as in "I have, like, a fabulous vocabulary!" and all the various terminology for illegal immigrants.
The phrase "Emotional Intelligence" is my pick. Not only is it over-used, its an oxymoron.
What am I supposed to do here?
Berate you intelligently, or support your feelings of inadequacy?
I really need an answer to this. I'm doing my 2008 goal setting! So my boss can tell if "I've grown as a person". (Not physically, at 42, I should be fully grown now.)
I understand the need to "punch it up" in the media. But, you can use your thesaurus too. Flawless tempest anyone?
I'm tired of the phrase "the integrity of baseball" applied to a sport whose founding myth is a twentieth-century creation, where asterisks should rightly be attached to most records achieved in the pre-blacks era and as many as fifty-percent of the players may have been using performance-enhancing drugs at one time.


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