« Moments of Personal Glory | Main | Kitty in a Drawer »

March 04, 2008

Annoying English

If there's anything I can't stand, it's when people use the English language so improperly as to be completely wrong in what they're trying to say. Perhaps it's endemic to my being a writer, but here are just a few examples that illustrate my point.

The pronunciation of "nuclear:" Of course, we all know George W. is famous for mispronouncing this word. The correct pronunciation is "noo-kleer," NOT "noo-kyu-lar." Please take a moment to look closely at its spelling. It is not spelled "nucular;" there is no second "u" in the spelling and therefore shouldn't be pronounced that way. I realize the English language has many, many words that aren't pronounced the way they're spelled, but this one is. So George, GET IT RIGHT!

The misuse of popular phrases: Sometimes these are referred to as buzz words. There are a few that really get my goat. The first is when people misuse the term "bandwidth" to refer to the personnel resources of a company and their capabilities. "We don't have enough bandwidth to take on that project." Folks, we are not Cylons or computers and we don't have data flowing through our veins--well, maybe Don does. If you're going to say something like that, it would be better to say, "We don't have enough resources to take on that project." Just because people think a word sounds cool or they think it makes them sound cool, doesn't mean you should use it. I had a boss that was notorious for this.

The term "offline:" That same boss who was notorious for using what he thought were cool buzz words was also guilty of misusing this term and I wanted to strangle him every time he did. He would say, "Let's talk about that offline." Now, obviously, he means to say, "Let's talk about that at another time, not in this meeting." But again, we are NOT computers, we're people. We're in a meeting FACE to FACE; we're not chatting online or even emailing. If you mean to say "let's talk about that later," then SAY, "let's talk about that later."

The term "flesh," as in "flesh out:" I received a meeting request in my email today where the meeting organizer said, "They (the client) would like us to come back with several ideas that can be fleshed out upon review of the ideas." People, flesh is flesh. What you meant to say is the client wants us to "FLUSH" out ideas, as you might metaphorically flush out quail from a bush, the quail being the ideas.

Lastly, the term "irregardless:" Look it up in the dictionary--you won't find it because this is NOT a word. What people sometimes say is, "Irregardless of the facts, blah blah blah." The correct phrase is, "Regardless of the facts, etc.," meaning "in spite of the facts..." The suffix "-less" makes the word "regard" a negative. To add the prefix "ir-" also implies a negative. Therefore, to add both means you have a double negative which is wrong.

I know I'm being anal, but that's just me. Just like your mother always told you not to pick your nose, I'm telling you not to misuse these words in the English language.

Posted by Amy at March 4, 2008 09:35 AM

Comments

Oooh! I even hate using the term "flush out" in that example, because they're not flushing out the quail. They're diving deeper into the ideas to add detail and figure out where the holes are. This is the opposite of "flushing out."

Now, if there was a brainstorming session with a hundred ideas and they wanted to whittle it down to the best 5, then, yes, that's "flushing out" the best ideas from the bunch.

Nice post, Amy!!

Posted by: Christy Brewer [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 5, 2008 01:18 PM

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


Remember me?