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The word stood out like a toilet seat in the middle of an empty road. It shouldn't have been there. A news outlet - not this one - had written that someone was "reticent" to take a course of action. What the author had meant was that they were "reluctant".
Once I'd seen it, I began hearing it over and over - in news broadcasts and in everyday conversations - and it turned up repeatedly in other printed material. This is how infections start. One word in the wrong place and in no time it's misused repeatedly.
We end up becoming reticent to be reluctant, when we should be reluctant to be reticent.
I claim no moral high ground here, having been caught in similar traps all my working life. When people ask if I speak any other languages, my stock reply is: "No, I'm still trying to master English." That lifelong struggle has forged a vigilance and spiky intolerance for words in the wrong place - and for discordant phrases, buzzwords and unnecessary fillers that bloat the language and distort its meaning.
The confusion of "they're", "their" and "there" all over social media, the rogue apostrophes running rampant in advertising, the management-speak which turns a simple concept like "time" into "bandwidth". They all conspire to redline the blood pressure.
I'm not alone. A recent discussion revealed a litany of words and phrases that rankle - sometimes even distressing the person uttering them.
"I find myself saying 'primo'," confessed one. "I need to stop."
"Yeah," agreed another. "I always say 'brilliant' or 'sounds good', which don't mean a thing."
"I hate it when people say they plan to 'elevate' something like a shopping centre," someone else offered. What? You're going to jack it up? How about keeping it simple with a word like "improve"?
"Basically" upsets the father-in-law. "So many people use it and it adds nothing to a sentence," he hissed.
"Journey" is a pet peeve of mine. When I told someone how I'd given up alcohol years ago, they remarked about my "journey". But I hadn't gone anywhere. There was no adventure, no mountain to climb. If anything, I'd stopped journeying - at least to the fridge and back with another Corona.
I have no time for events. A rainstorm is exactly that. There's no need to add the word "event". A flood is a flood, not a flooding event.
I share political analyst Grant Wyeth's loathing of the term "so-called", too often used unnecessarily and dismissively. "So-called" is shorthand for unworthy and reveals as much about the user as the subject to which it's appended. "It plays to reflex responses and eschews genuine engagement with ideas or even evidence," Wyeth writes.
Amusement quickly turns to irritation when squeaky, freshly minted ABC TV reporters try to add gravitas to their live crosses by beginning every report with "now". "Now, Roz, the government has announced..." Kiddies, you're not fooling anyone.
And when people begin their sentences with "to be honest", a seed of doubt is planted. You're telling me you're not always honest?
But this is all minor compared to some of the clangers put together by the Plain English Foundation. It lists as the worst in 2023 Qantas's doublespeak when trying to justify selling already cancelled flights. Qantas told the ACCC it doesn't sell particular flights at all. No, it sells passengers "a bundle of contractual rights".
But my favourite was the foundation's people's choice award, which went to Elon Musk's SpaceX, when its Starship exploded after launch. Ordinary folk might have assumed it had been blown to smithereens but not SpaceX, which said it had undergone a "rapid unscheduled disassembly".
Let's hope our beautiful language doesn't suffer a similar fate.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Are there particular words, phrases or examples of jargon that annoy you? Do you find yourself wanting to correct people who use words incorrectly? Or is that just a spiky Echidna thing? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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UPDATE FROM THE BURROW: The Echidna is operating on its summer schedule, appearing in your inbox on Tuesdays and Fridays. We'll be back to full Echidna service in the week beginning January 22.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Denmark will soon have a new Australian-born Queen. Crown Princess Mary is set to become the world's first Australian-born queen when her mother-in-law abdicates the Danish throne in two weeks time.
- Australian investigative journalist John Pilger has died aged 84, his family has announced. The documentary maker, who lived in the UK, was known for his work covering the aftermath of Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia and also looked into the Thalidomide scandal along with his war correspondent work.
- History may show the US-led invasion of Iraq was based on false information but former defence minister Robert Hill insists federal cabinet was right to support the war. Classified documents released by the National Archives after a 20-year freeze reveal deliberations over Australia's involvement in the conflict.
THEY SAID IT: "A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation." - Mark Twain
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