Words I Hate

Annie Gottlieb of Ambivablog talks about words she hates, most especially vlog, for video log.

She made me think about words, both high-tech and no-tech, that I hate.

From the online world, the one I most loathe is blogosphere. As I've written before, it looks like a world that would have been invented in the 1950s to suggest something futuristic. But like Walt Disney's Tomorrowland, it seems clunky and old fashioned rather than an apt description of something au courant.

But blogosphere is far less loathesome than some that have gained currency. One that seems to have gained legitimacy in recent years is the term suck, as in "That sucks." I hate, hate, HATE that word!

We all know the background of the term as an expression of denigration. Maybe its use in this way is in some convoluted way attributable to Bill Clinton. But, really, what's wrong with saying something like, "That stinks!" to describe a circumstance you intensely dislike. That would be far more accurate an expression of one's sentiments anyway.

I also hate words that are actually non-existent, except that their use has given them legitimacy. When people use the insensible word, irregardless, for example, they really mean regardless. (Or irrespective. Or no matter.) "Regardless of what we think, the government does what it wants to do." That's what the users of irregardless mean to say. Instead, by plugging a negating prefix onto the word, they're actually saying, "Regardful of what we think..."

Amba also mentions the term, WOT for War on Terror, sometimes GWOT, Global War on Terror. Apart from the the unnecessary expansion of initials, I see why these terms in themselves are so objectionable. Our war isn't on terror, after all. Terror is a tactic. You can't imagine Churchill calling on Great Britain to make war on U-Boats, for example. War had to be waged against Germany and the Nazis. The global war on terror is really a global war on terrorists, not on the tactic of terror.

But, on these and other words and usages I loathe, I'm probably swimming against the current. That really sort of stinks, doesn't it?