Irritating Language
February 11, 2008
Words and phrases that seem redundant, obtuse, marketing-speaking, or just plain stupid. Please feel welcome to add to my less than exhaustive list.
- Upcharge. In market-speak, apparently this means that we’re going to charge you more. Redundant. You pay more, the bill goes up.
- Back in the day. Modern way of saying “in the old days, when we were young.” My question: which day do we go back to? Monday? How about Tuesday?
- Gift. A word-saving verb that means to give a gift. Back in the day, we didn’t gift our friends and family, we gave them a nice present. I like the idea of giving.
- Regift. Another word-saving verb. Regifting is what people do when they are gifted with stuff they don’t like. Back in the day, we’d save these gifts for a rummage sale or yard sale.
- Ingathering. This is a big made up word at our church. In the fall, we have a service, ingathering everyone in the congregation from their summer travels. Redundant. How else does one gather? Outgather?
Entry Filed under: Language, Personal Commentary. .
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1.
Bad Fiction « Notes&hellip | February 24, 2008 at 10:46 pm
[...] 24, 2008 Back in the day, (I can’t believe I used that phrase), Saturday Night Live used to do a sketch featuring Dan Akroyd, called Bad Opera, or Bad [...]
2.
catty | February 27, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I’ve heard of everything except Ingathering. It sounds like a Bushism, therefore I don’t like it. My personal peeve has been “New and Improved”. If it’s new, where does the improvement come in????
3.
Neal Watzman | February 27, 2008 at 4:32 pm
The only place I’ve ever heard “ingathering” used is at our UU (Universalist Unitarian) church. It is usually referring to a gathering of people. It’s redundant at best, meaningless, and quite irritating.
4.
jedijawa | February 28, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I love to track neologisms but hate to see the ones that are market driven.