Language is something I keenly watch, and I enjoy wordsmiths who can use language playfully. There are people who write majestically using few words, and I admire them beyond compare. At the same time, there are writers who are atrocious, either because of their circumlocution or their inability to speak evenly and with a good flow.
Still, in ordinary speech, it's difficult to find people who are gifted enough to lift the level of language at the drop of a hat. Writers can always edit their words, or have people who help them edit their prose. Speakers, especially when they speak extemporaneously, aren't always possessed of articulate elegance. When they are, it's pure music. But when they aren't, it can become hackneyed and hard to listen.
At the conversational level, we all -- myself included -- fall into certain staples that we either favor or use as common defaults. Karen likes to tease me that there are certain phrases that I use so often as to gain admission into the Redundancy School of Redundancy. She's right; I do. And some of the ones I use may be off-putting to other people, because there are certain phrases or usages that others use that drive me nuts. I'm wrong on these, I realize, but still...I cringe whenever I hear these words or phrases used in the contexts in which they're used.
I married my best friend: Yes, Karen is my best friend. But to describe what I did when I married her as having married my best friend doesn't even begin to describe the magnitude of what I did. I married the best person I'll ever know, the love of my life, the woman who makes me go weak in the knees and whose voice and touch I crave above all others. I realize that when the adjective best is used, it necessarily separates that person from the rest of one's friends. Still, there are other nouns that I'd use -- lover, for example -- that rarely get used. It's as if we're trying to equate friendship with love, and although there may be elements of each in both, I think love (and lover) is superior to friendship (and friend). But what do I know?
Fellowship: This one is fingernails on a blackboard to me. When used in the religious context, it drives me nuts. It shouldn't, I know, but the only proper usage of fellowship for me involves hobbits, golden rings and authors with three initials. Again, I'm wrong, but I can't stand this one.
Daddy: Being a carpetbagging Northerner, this objection may be regional. I have no problem with children using this for their fathers. Heck, I did it...for awhile. My objection to the usage of this word is when adults -- thirty-year-olds, forty-year-olds and older -- refer to their fathers as daddy. Karen, who has deep roots south of the Mason-Dixon line, has argued with me that it's a normal usage in Dixie, and I'll stipulate to that. I might even be persuaded that women can still use this to refer to their fathers well into their dotage. But men? Seriously? Men who themselves are fathers? I don't know. I can't imagine using the term at that age. Then again, my relationship with my own father was distant at best, so what do I know?
Journey: It's de rigueur to describe romantic relationships as a journey. Perhaps the first five hundred times the word was used this way it was evocative. Now it's lame and lazy. Besides -- where is this relationship going? A journey usually as an end point in mind. Does anyone know where a relationship is headed when it begins?
Chemistry: This is another overworked word used in relationships. And journey is too narrow, chemistry doesn't adequately describe a relationship if for no other reason that it's too broad. What kind of chemistry? Some kind is combustible. Other kinds make things foam up. Still other kinds burn. Saying that a couple has great chemistry is fine, and at one time it was novel, but now it's like journey and it's become trite. Not to mention broadly inaccurate.
Iconic: This is one that gained traction and has since taken off into oblivion. There are certainly icons in music, sports, entertainment and other fields. But the use of this term is so watered down now that anyone who has been able to extend his fifteen minutes of fame to a full hour is now called iconic by the media. It's overused to the point of dilution now. I'm not sure it can ever retain its original meaning such that the likes of Michael Jordan won't be lumped into the same category as Demi Lovato.
Baby: Ugh. My wife is no baby. I guarantee that. She's my sweetheart, my love, my bride, my beloved, the center of my universe...but she's no baby. Women can use it, I guess, as an affectionate term for their beloved, but it sounds bad to me when a man uses it for his woman.
That's a good/great question: So someone's being interviewed and she feels it's acceptable to rate the questions being asked? It's probably a schmooze tactic that's taught by handlers to politicians and celebrities, and it could be used to buy time to formulate a question. In a casual interview, when someone is taken aback by the question and has to think about the answer for a second, saying that may actually be honest. But the way some high profile people use it (and repeatedly use it during an interview) it comes off as practiced and insincere.
Thank you for asking me/I'm glad you asked that question: This one usually comes up in interviews with politicians, athletes or celebrities who have been involved in a scandal. They say it so seem forthright. It's unctuous. The problem is that ones that use it are usually ones that have done something embarrassing or heinous and don't really want to have to answer something, so they want to sound as if they do want to be there answering questions. Again, it could simply be practiced, something that a handler told them to say to make them seem more likeable. To me it rings false.
(c) 2017 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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