Things tend to wear out, like old shoes and the knees in pants. So we throw them out. No big deal, right? A “usefulness” cycle.
Worn out linguistic habits also need regular pruning. Being a deeply diverse language, everyday American English provides plenty of opportunities for casting insults and trashing.
Let’s make a category of Annoying Overuse. I nominate the word “amazing.” It is used so often that no one is actually amazed anymore. It has achieved meaninglessness. Other garbage words include “unbelievable,” “totally,” “incredible,” “like,” “absolutely,” “really,” “literally.” It behooves us to think of alternative vocabulary.
Or how about the annoying overuse of the word “perfect”? We don’t really mean perfect. Perfect is the ideal Aristotelian adverb when most of the time we mean “next subject,” “sign here,” or “you’re done.” Pick on an adverb your own size.
Another category is Annoying Mispronunciation, with the seemingly innocuous “often” as star awardee. I frequently hear often mispronounced awwf-ten. This contagion has even leaked all over nightly newsreaders. Do we say liss-ten (listen) or soff-ten (soften), cass-tel (castle) or wiss-tel (whistle)? No! Silent T’s are a fact of life in our polyglot tongue so let’s silence the T in often, an innocent adverb.
How about such blackboard-scratching mispronunciations as new-cue-lar (nuclear: noo-clee-ur), mason-airy (masonry: may-sun-ree), or reel-a-ter (realtor: reel-tor). Furthermore, neither “remodel” nor “install” are nouns. They are verbs, thank you very much.
Last item in today’s chat salad is Plain Old Wrong Word, such as using cement (sticky stuff) when you mean concrete (aggregate + water + sticky stuff).
Have you been annoyed by American English too? Perfect!
Karen Morris Muriello
Oak Park