Like, Whatever....

I love the English language. It's the most expressive and fluid language in the world, constantly evolving. Although we think when we study English grammar that it is full of complicated "rules", it's actually pretty loose compared to say, French or Chinese. Or Icelandic. I mean, have you ever tried to fathom out what Bjork is saying?

However, it's estimated* that most people only have a working vocabulary of less than 2000 words from a rich language that offers over 500,000 to choose from. And these days it seems that most of those are cliches.

So I was delighted to come across a book called She Literally Exploded: The "Daily Telegraph" Infuriating Phrasebook. They asked their readers in the UK to send in their most hated phrases and words that abound in our culture today, and there are some doozies!

Those listed at the top include, "inappropriate", "escalate", "legend", "hero", "challenged", "take care", "confirmed", "ground-breaking", "moving on", "tipping point", "let's do lunch", "basically", "issues", "leverage", "24/7", "societal", "absolutely", "amazing" and the word "client" when referring to customers, patients or inmates.

People also appear to detest restaurant jargon. "Pan-fried" (what else will you fry in? a shoe?) "oven-baked" (ditto) , "au jus" (gravy), "coulis" (sauce) and "freshly-picked" (as opposed to what?) all make the cut.

They also included a few of my own pet peeves - "facilitate", "rigorous", "core competencies" "cohorts" and "methodologies". These crop up a lot in Educational Theory and make me want to scream when I have to read them. I adored this real example of a job advertisement listing: "Proactive, self-starting facilitator required to empower cohorts of students and enable them to access the curriculum." See?? See what I mean??????? Just gouge my eyes out with a spoon, thanks.

According to the book, the most hated phrase was "at the end of the day" and the most hated word is "like", followed by "whatever". I agree wholeheartedly!

If you've ever lived with a teenager and had the privilege of listening to them talk, you will understand the murderous rage that can overcome one in a split second when you overhear a snippet such as; "She was, like, in the pool, right? And, like, she dived in and her top, like, came off! And she was like, what? And we were, like, laughing, and she was like, whatever, and we were like, whatever".

Sadly, they didn't address the phenomenon of people who obliviously mispronounce words. I have a friend of twenty-odd years who consistently says "pacific" instead of "specific", as in, "I pacifically told him not to do that". She has done this since the day we met. It is a mark of our friendship that I haven't snapped her neck.

Maybe I should write a book .....



**I read this fact somewhere recently but can't be bothered to go and find out where. But it's true!! I swear on the interwebs!