Ned Pepper's Outrages

Monday, September 20, 2010

More irritating phrases from idiots

Ned's friend and associate Misterjimmy has from time to time taken Ned to task for a seeming inattention to the many annoying phrases that have crept like caterpillars into our speech. Ned has experienced two such phrases, one hallowed and one new, and is moved to rise from his rum-induced torpor and rage, rage against them. The old one is "bragging rights." Ned has no idea where this annoying and even idiotic phrase arose, but asks his many friends to avoid its use whenever possible, especially within Ned's hearing. Indeed, as Ned is convinced by his attention to Holy Writ that bragging is a minor no-no, he encourages all who aspire to a Reward in the Afterlife to avoid the phrase for that reason as well.
The second, and to Ned's experience, new source of irritation is the many variants on the phrase "pushback", apparently referring to the response of an unoffending person to aggressive and untoward behavior on the part of another, or something similar. The variant that Ned finds particularly annoying is "give push back", meaning a response to inappropriate behavior.
From this latter phrase one can move on to others in which one word has been found to be insufficient to describe a phenomenon, and must be replaced by two or more, thus lengthening the talker's or writer's hold on the listener or reader. Ned would offer as an example, "brave troops" for the old word "troops" which to Ned seemed complete and appropriate. One could also recall the old chestnut "all new", for "new", which always seemed sufficient to Ned.
And, "me, myself, personally" comes to mind as particularly egregious.
Ned invites his readers to offer their own examples, and may, with Q A Wagstaff, FRS, devise an Award for the Most Outrageous and Offending Useless Phrase, should public interest require it.

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