Monday, January 03, 2011

2011: Time to Retire Some Words & Phrases

I Don't "Do" Resolutions, but.....

Time to end the overuse and abuse of the following words and phrases in 2011. They've long outlasted their welcome. Here's a few:

1) "the hot seat" - Where did this even start? It's running rampant. Sportscasters like to say "Coach "so-and-so" is on the hot seat". CNN used "Piers Morgan puts Anderson Cooper on the hot seat"....

What in the hell is the hot seat? I've been fired from jobs. I don't recall my seat being particularly hot beforehand. If you're on the verge of being fired, why would it have anything to do with your ass being warmer than usual? If anything, wouldn't it be getting colder?

2) "..at the end of the day". Boy, am I tired of this one. Managers looooooove to use this one. "Guys, your sales numbers haven't been great and AT THE END OF THE DAY, that's what is important..." Former jock commentators, too. "Michael Vick may be a worthless piece of monkey spunk, but, AT THE END OF THE DAY, he wins football games..."

Again, not sure where this started. Why are things judged always at the end of the day? What about the evening? How about monthly results? Annual returns? What if you live in Alaska and daylight carries on for 60 hours straight? Is that still a 'day'?

3) "Bro" - if you're a white guy, this has to stop. Now.

4) "Two-party system" - first of all, this doesn't exist anymore. It's the same party with different haircuts. There is just "Congress" now. For kicks, take a look at a group picture of our elected leaders and see if there's any hint of color in there. Sorry, 'pink' and 'ruddy' doesn't count. Also, calling it a 'system' is dubious, at best. Systems work. Time to just refer to Republicans and Democrats as "marketing reps and lackies for the corporations that paid them".

5) "Amaaazing" - I know I'm not the first to nail this one, but, it seems to have gathered strength. We need more ammo.

6) "...my child" - this is only used when parents want to make their kids sound more precious and important than they really are. For instance, can you see the difference between these two sentences: "My kid needs a better teacher." vs. "My child needs a quality education". A "child" is far more important than a "kid".

and finally...

7) "..the American People" - oh, glorious God in the sky, please end this shit! Politicos and talking heads LOOOOOOOOVE to use this when they want to stress an important point. "Public", "people", "Americans", "folks" are all fine alternatives to this afront on my intelligence. "What the American people want is a Congress that cares about the American people. If not, the American people won't stand for it!"

Why do we keep voting these walking blast furnaces with teeth into office? I stopped watching Meet the Press and the Sunday morning shows because of it. It's the same as the overuse of the word "football" on sports broadcasts? "This football team needs to run the football...", etc. But, I've been railing on that for five years, thereby, ruining the viewing habits of several friends.

Sorry, fellas...I mean, sorry, bro.

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