A list of things that annoy me in English usage. Not that I’m a pedant – that would make me a hypocrite because I make as many errors as anyone – but there are things that just irritate me. This list started an article by Jeremy Butterfield in The Guardian weekly 10/4/15: (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/03/bad-language-bugs-me)
Plus this: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170904-how-americanisms-are-killing-the-english-language
Another Guardian writer, Jonathan Bouquet complains amongst others about use of “awesome” and “stunning”: https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2022/jun/26/may-i-have-a-word-about-dreadful-words-awewome-and-stunning
Points 1-10 below are Butterfield’s, the additions from 11 onwards are mine:
- to wed: Who else but journalists would use this ridiculous, archaic word? Imagine a friend telling you, “Hey, I’ve got some great news! Zoe and I are to wed next week.” You would bite your lip, while wondering if they had swallowed the Hello! style guide. The word was almost bearable when it skulked in the red tops; in a serious newspaper (the Guardian, too, is guilty), it is irretrievably naff.
- haitch: The eighth letter of the alphabet is pronounced “aitch”. Look it up in a dictionary if you don’t believe me. I challenge you to find an “h” sound in the pronunciation shown there. People born from the 1980s onwards apparently favour this pronunciation; youth is no excuse for illiteracy.
- achingly: Here’s another piece of journalistic flimflam, eg “They consistently produce achingly hip music.” Oh, for heaven’s sake, grow up! It isn’t “achingly” anything, you pretentious scribbler. You’re just trying to show how “edgy” (there’s another one) you are.
- in terms of: This hook on which many a sentence dangles, gasping for life, is not exactly new, but it is still as irritating and meaningless as ever. A politico says: “We have made great progress in terms of the deficit.” No, we have not.
- to leverage, leverage (noun): Business speak has its place, and that place is in business. When TV’s Mr Selfridge intones dramatically, “I don’t want you using my daughter as leverage,” he might sound businesslike; he also shows that the scriptwriter has cloth ears.
- unacceptable: Such a feeble, euphemistic little word, but so often trotted out. Little Tommy’s behaviour is “unacceptable”, the kindergarten warns us. What does that mean? Is he behaving like an egocentric monster and, if we don’t do something, will develop into a fully fledged psychopath? Or has he merely pulled Miranda’s hair? A multitude of sins are covered, but never specified, because we are too kind-hearted, too polite and ultimately, too soft.
- to address: People in the business of not really meaning what they say love this word for its soothing vagueness. When they undertake to “address the issue of … ” you can be sure that nothing much will happen, and that said issue will speedily be kicked into the long grass. When someone says, “But the government should consider how it could address public concerns,” you can be sure that some kind of perfunctory “listening exercise” will be trumpeted, and then said concerns will be blithely ignored.
- a criteria: “Such a criteria is unscientific and misleading.” On reading that my reaction is: “Such a sentence is illiterate and misshapen.” The word is criterion in the singular, and criteria in the plural. Punto e basta!
- clamber: eg “Eager crowds clambered to catch a glimpse of the newly elected … ” Unless they turned into Spiderman and shimmied up lamp posts, they did no such thing. What they did was to noisily express (yes, it’s fine to split an infinitive) their eagerness to “catch a glimpse”. In other words, they clamoured.
- reach out: Last, and very definitely not least, this absurdly gushing and pseudo-empathetic American metaphor needs no comment. I am sure readers will happily supply their own. What’s wrong with the simple English word “contact” (as a verb)?
- Named for: also from The Guardian weekly 10/4/15
- Very unique: qualifying a superlative which by definition can’t be
- Inappropriate : when you just can’t bring yourself to say “wrong” or “bad”
- Ask (noun): obscurantist alternative to “request” (see also “inappropriate”)
- Bottoms up: in forecasting, mistaken for the correct “bottom up” which means created by aggregating from a lower (hierarchical or detail) level. “Bottoms up” is what we say when we share a drink.
- Thought Partner: euphemism for junior analyst, becoming prevalent in HR circles
- Optics: weird reference to that which is merely superficial or apparent. Just say “superficial appearance” or “impression”. Optics are in a lens, or are the study of light refraction.
- Pass away: euphemism for die. Is anything worth passing away for?
- Advocate for: just say “advocate”
- “Department for x” instead of “Department of” as if that somehow makes it better
- Some plural words that confuse Americans and other non-native speakers:
- Data (plural), datum (singular)
- Criteria (plural), criterion (singular). See #8
- Graffiti (plural), graffito (singular)
- Latin abbreviation i.e. (id est) used when what’s meant is e.g. (exempli gratia). I think, maybe over-generously, that this is an innocent mistake commonly made by non-native English speakers.
- Direction of travel – when you just mean “direction”. What does the “travel” add?
- Guardrails. Increasingly common word which I think translates to guiding principles, constraint rules or even more simply scope or limits.
- North Star. This has begun popping up – I think it also means something like guiding principle or maybe purpose
- Normalcy. What on earth is wrong with normality?
- Military (noun). As in “the military”. The military what? If you want to mean militia or more generally armed forces then say so. Other irritating noun-free adjectives include: dairy, solar, vertical and nuclear.
- From My Side (preposition). Also From My Point of View or From My Perspective. Pompous euphemism for “in my opinion” when you’re trying not to say that.
- Piece. Used as synonym for “subject” or “theme”.
- Critique. Used as a substitute for criticism because of a morbid and over-sensitive fear of appearing – horrors! – negative. In fact my dictionary says the words are equivalent, meaning a close or careful review or examination, with critique simply being a work containing criticism. To object or disagree would be clearer but – gasp! – negative.
- Fail a (drugs) test. A test for drugs might result in positive readings for some specific parameters, but you can’t pass or fail it like you could say a spelling or driving test. This is just sloppy.
- Cancel. A modern meaning of this is simply to ban, boycott, ignore, snub, shun or ostracise. But those are too old-fashioned, I guess.
- Woke. Ghastly modern coinage which simply means (overly) soft, soppy, indulgent, sensitive or puritan. Or maybe just self-important. A less sympathetic set of synonyms would include brainwashed or inculcated.
- Align. Must we line up like soldiers? Could we not simply agree?
- On a daily basis. What’s wrong with just daily?
- At scale. This peculiar usage oddly leaves out the actual meaning which is on a large scale. Similarly At Pace which just means quickly – or maybe at that of a snail.
- Attrit (verb). Attrition is just a slightly pompous way of expressing incremental losses. So if one thing is lost, just say lost, don’t pretend you can make a verb out of the noun.
- Super (adverb). Now used as a prefix, taken to mean very and has taken over from mega, at least among the over-25s
- Libertarian. Widely accepted – but not by me – term for which I’d say free-market extremist/ultra or maybe doctrinaire/rapacious/hard core capitalist
- (Storm) losing its identity. It’s a meteorological phenomenon, not an institution with a psyche. What’s wrong with the simpler fading away, dissipating or breaking down?
- Survivor. One can only survive something that is actually or potentially deadly. As here, for example a couple of black eyes look bad, but not life-threatening. Maybe victim just doesn’t sound dramatic enough.
- Cis-(sexual). This is a contentious one. Cooked up probably by someone who doesn’t understand chemistry to mean the opposite of transsexual. Comes from cis-/transisomerism which seems all wrong. Trans just means across or on the other side and cis means on the same side. My preference would be for something like ortho- (for normal or unchanged) vs parasexual or metasexual. So you’d have e.g. an orthosexual male vs a parasexual (like “beside” or “parallel”) male. Maybe allosexual. See here for more suggestions which lead e.g. to mutosexual, morphosexual, vicasexual (!),
- Lean in. This metaphor seems to have various translations into actual English: assert (oneself), persist or take part in.
- Double down. Ah, another one. I think it could be expressed in English as persevere.
- An annoying American tendency to omit words, such as: Limited (Edition), tee (shirt), traffic (jam), rubber (Johnny)
And on the topic of American “English”, this is an infantile offence to the subtly-tuned ear of a true native speaker, a pabulum compared with our Grand Cru, the twang of a banjo compared with the rich tones of a violin. It lacks the lexical subtleties that only a native English speaker can deploy.
This list excludes American spelling errors such as color, flavor, aluminum etc, and misuses such as the verbs defense and license as if they were nouns.
| American | English |
| Awesome | Good |
| Leverage (verb) | Use Exploit |
| Reach out | Contact |
| Cadence | Frequency |
| Oftentimes | Often |
| Off of | Off |
| Out of | From |
| Transportation | Transport |
| Normalcy | Normality |
| Good (adverb) | Well |
| Caucus (verb) | Discuss/debate |
| Mindset | Attitude |
| Step up to the plate | Come forward |
| Front and centre | High priority |
Not primarily to do with Americanisms but an interesting example of irrational nonsense laced with woolly thinking.
Letter in the Guardian weekly: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/sep/19/guardian-weekly-letters-22-september-2017 about misuse (in a different context though) of the word exploit
In how many ways is this wrong?
- Of course a cat exploits its owner. To exploit is simply to take advantage of – it implies no consciousness – as for example a bacterium exploits its host or environment
- Implicit is that to exploit is somehow negative. Maybe there’s an inference that the awful Americanistic leverage-as-verb should be used. Or how about just “use”?
- Of course a cat has motives – in the same way that the bacterium does. Again the idea of a motive seems here also implicitly to be a necessarily negative one, and also the exclusive property of animals with consciousness.
- Malignity is also an unhelpful idea here: is an animal that exploits another animal by eating it malign? So is an animal that causes another one to benefit it also malign?
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