Signage. What is wrong with "signs," I ask you?Utilize. Used when "use" is just not fancy enough.Deployment. Among academic writers, routinely utilized as a synonym for "employment." I am not joking.Gazillion. As in "If you publish my book, we'll sell gazillions of copies."Prior to. Theodore Bernstein, author of The Careful Writer, asks: "Would you say posterior to in place of after?"
And now that I have revealed myself as a spleeny crank, I feel much better and am off to feed the goats.
I add "impact" as a verb in any sense other than the dental/colonic, as in "the molar/colon is fully impacted."
ReplyDeleteDeployment? As in, "I had a fellowship there but now I'm deployed at Harvard"? Really?
Yesterday I was reading about "positive anymore" and that's just wacky. http://positiveanymore.blogspot.com/2005/11/positive-anymore-what-heck-does-that.html
defined at http://everything2.com/title/positive+anymore+speech
A friend has reminded me of the dreadful "offload" instead of "unload."
ReplyDeleteAnd yes: "deployed at Harvard." That is exactly what's going on.
I like spleen. It cheers me up to know you are out there disliking things. Also, I too am suspicious of YA as a subdivision/suburb of novels.
ReplyDeleteI would add " prioritize" instead of "place in order of importance" and the phrase "to build community"!!!! Some communities cannot, should not be built and some build themselves.
ReplyDeleteOh I do agree about offload. Do we have onload? Oh glory, see what you have unleashed!!
You should see the 26 comments under my Facebook complaint about "signage." There's a world of spleeny word haters out there!
ReplyDelete