Words for the Dumpster
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
WITH the last tick of 2013, let’s throw out the most annoying, overused and abused words of the year. A few of these terms, “twerking” or “stay classy,” die a natural death when someone like John McCain starts using them — the aural equivalent of a comb-over. Others need a push.
Many of these words originated in the food world and would have been perfectly fine had they not migrated to the general population. Some came out of mid-management office talk. What these hapless clichés have in common is this: They have been so diluted by misuse that they’ve lost their meaning. And like bad holiday sweaters and Sarah Palin outrage, the following list is highly selective. To the Dumpster:
ARTISAN Once the legitimate term for cheese makers with alternative grooming habits and creative body art, this word has been co-opted by all the wrong people selling all the wrong products. Toilet-cleaning chemicals. Convenience store “food” with pull dates measured in decades. This is what happens when farmers’ markets fail to sue for copyright infringement.
BRAND A close second to artisan, used as a verb and a noun for self-promotion. It sprang from corporate marketing, and then went viral after every 9-year-old with a Facebook page or a Twitter handle began obsessing over how to shape random life events into a monetized narrative. It’s bad enough that politicians worry about their brand. But prisoners?
(More here.)
WITH the last tick of 2013, let’s throw out the most annoying, overused and abused words of the year. A few of these terms, “twerking” or “stay classy,” die a natural death when someone like John McCain starts using them — the aural equivalent of a comb-over. Others need a push.
Many of these words originated in the food world and would have been perfectly fine had they not migrated to the general population. Some came out of mid-management office talk. What these hapless clichés have in common is this: They have been so diluted by misuse that they’ve lost their meaning. And like bad holiday sweaters and Sarah Palin outrage, the following list is highly selective. To the Dumpster:
ARTISAN Once the legitimate term for cheese makers with alternative grooming habits and creative body art, this word has been co-opted by all the wrong people selling all the wrong products. Toilet-cleaning chemicals. Convenience store “food” with pull dates measured in decades. This is what happens when farmers’ markets fail to sue for copyright infringement.
BRAND A close second to artisan, used as a verb and a noun for self-promotion. It sprang from corporate marketing, and then went viral after every 9-year-old with a Facebook page or a Twitter handle began obsessing over how to shape random life events into a monetized narrative. It’s bad enough that politicians worry about their brand. But prisoners?
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home