The utilisation of words
I love the English language.
Well, not so much the language but the way it’s being used these days.
Just as an example, I have noticed the prevalence of the word “utilised”. Why not utilise the word “used”? I blame the American military and police for using important sounding words to make their speech sound more official. Another common one is “going forward”. That doesn’t really mean anything but I presume they mean they intend doing something in the future? Just listen to any official in the States making a press announcement and you’ll be treated to the Officialese Lexicon.
Another area where new words have come into fashion is in the area of second-hand goods. Second-hand has vanished from the vocabulary in favour of the touchy-feely “pre-loved”. I drive a second-hand car, not a pre-loved one. If the previous owner loved it then why did he sell it? A similar example is the new buzz-word “re-imagined”. Second-hand furniture seems to frequently be re-imagined, usually meaning someone has slapped a different coat of paint on it.
My favourite though is the use of the language to make something sound frightfully important. One of the first of these that gave me a right laugh was back in the days of the Apollo space programme when they renamed the common or garden hatch as “an Ingress Egress Facility”.
This week we were treated to two new delightful examples of mangling words.
The first case was a Russian plane accidentally [or otherwise] bombing his own city. Presumably they couldn’t actually say that so they came up with the brilliant “An abnormal descent of aviation ammunition“. “The fucker bombed his own city” is clearly not acceptable for some reason.
The other example was, of course, the somewhat spectacular failure of the SpaceX rocket. It took off nicely and flew for a couple of minutes but when it came to the separation of a stage something went rather amiss and the rocket exploded. Bang! Quite a firework! Naturally they couldn’t say it had gone bang despite the whole event being broadcast live so they declared the rocket had “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly”. Priceless! It made my day.
Just as an aside, I would assume the word “disassembly” to generally mean taking something apart in such a way that it can be reassembled?
I wonder if they are going to reassemble that rocket?
I once was involved in the design of a piece of kit we were flogging to military.
It had a two digit display indicating which video signal was being selected for onward transmission to the decision makers.
Below the display were two buttons, one to increase the displayed number and thus the signal selected, and the other to decrease the number.
On the drawings I was going to label the buttons “UP” and “DOWN”
A pompous twit, in SE England of course, changed these labels to “INCREMENT” and “DECREMENT”
How about Increase and Decrease? Or for the sake of brevity, + and – ?
“I wonder if they are going to reassemble that rocket?”
If they do, I definitely won’t be riding on it.
It all went so well until the last moment when they discovered they were missing one vital screw
‘Back-to-back’ is something that I hate. Another is ‘fraught’ without saying what the frautiness is. Fraught WITH ….
“At this moment in time”? What’s wrong with “now”?
Don’t you mean “At this PRECISE moment in time”?
“At one point, Barnum noticed that people were lingering too long at his exhibits. He posted signs indicating “This Way to the Egress”. Not knowing that “Egress” was another word for “Exit”, people followed the signs to what they assumed was a fascinating exhibit — and ended up outside.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum%27s_American_Museum#Attractions
“For his part, Barnum always maintained that his patrons were not “suckers” but willing participants in his lighthearted pranks and hoaxes. “The people like to be humbugged,” he once said.” – https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-p-t-barnum
Haha! Education is a wonderful thing?
Thought an egress was a bird.
“If the previous owner loved it then why did he sell it?”
Probably because he knew it was a “Lemon” https://headrambles.com/2023/04/18/citrus-fruit-on-wheels/
Sorry, Couldn’t resist! By the way, did you get it from a “Previously owned motor vehicle re-allocation consultant”?
Shit! I asked for that… 😐
In my past working days evaluating ‘leading edge’ PC software products, any faults or quirks discovered were described officially as ‘undocumented features’. In Beta products, often more than the documented ones!
Why the past tense? A lot of stuff still has its share of “features”?
My dad used to fume at the gormless phrase of complaint, “It’s a diabolical liberty”, because how could a devilish concern be associated with a freedom?
Have you noticed the increasing use of “go ahead and,” as in “I’m going to go head and paint the fence.” (It seems that “I’m going to paint the fence.” isn’t sufficient – fair warning needs to be issued first!)
Many years ago, on a long car journey, I was listening to a radio interview with a rock/pop musician. It seemed that his mot du jour (if you’ll excuse my French) was “situation”. He’d been in several bands but according to him he’d never been in a band, he’d always been in a band situation. The interview went on for about an hour and towards the end he stumbled and stuttered searching for the correct word. You know the sort of thing, you start saying “…erm … er … I … you know …” etc. The word he was looking for and couldn’t find was “situation”. The only time in the whole interview when “situation” was the right word to use and his brain wouldn’t let him use it. 🙂
I literally* laughed my head off. 😉
* Another word that is misutilised.
Utilised? that one’s been irritating me for at least 20 years now.
Back in my day, “guy” was a person of the male persuasion. Now [due to our friends over the water] “you guys” means a collection including females. That expression grates on my nerves to this day.
We do not have hauliers any more. We have logistics provider.
We have bin lorries, domestic refuse recycling vehicles?, with sign at front saying “Caution, operatives working at rear.” Now nice it must be to know that you are an operative.
Sanguineous fornicators.
‘Basically’ you’re right, er, ‘basically’…
A caller on LBC late one night last week said that word for every five words he gabbled!
*click*
“I hear what you’re saying.” Apparently, it began as a phrase used by Californian psychiatrists when talking to mental patients. If they said, “No, you’re not Napolean.” it could start a confrontation, while if they said, ” Yes, you are Napolean. “, there would be no power to keep the patient in the institution. “I hear what you’re saying, that you believe you’re Napolean” is non committal. Now, that bloody phrase is just another example of management speak.