Three Words that Hurt the English Language: Part One of Angry
Hey, look! I have a blog! Time to write a first post detailing exactly what I’m going to talk about forever and ever, or at least until next week when I change topics, buy a new domain name, and forever abandon this little corner of the web.
Wait, that didn’t work out so well before.
Righty-o, I’m bootstrapping this here web-log by writing not a “first post” but more of a fifth one. Let’s see how this goes!
Signage.
A waste of a syllable and the collective consciousness spent remembering this term. Just say “signs.” The rest of us are smart enough to figure out what you mean.
The rest after the jump.
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Blogosphere.
Gesundheit.
I know I’m far from the first to complain about this — dare I say — mashup of a word. Why the “-osphere?” Sure, there’s reason to find a shorter replacement for “the blogging community”…but it’d be hard to make a worse choice. The revolution will not be tastefully named.
Really, this goes back to a deeper root issue. “Blog” also is an awful word. For those of you new to the party, “blog” is just a shortened version of “weblog.” I’m over that, though; I can accept “blog” as inextricably embedded in our language now, if not be overly happy about it. (And, too, “weblogosphere” would be even worse.)
Sheeple.
Urgh. Why? WHY? That word is almost physically painful to type.
Read with me: “Hi! I sincerely believe that anyone disagreeing with me on this point are inferior groupthinking idiots. Watch as I smugly discard their opinions with a crappy fake word I learned in high school.”
It’s an ugly amalgamation of a word, something Jim Carrey would sputter between funny animal fart noises. The only justification for “sheeple” to exist is as a content warning flag: when I find it, I stop reading whatever I’m looking at and go do something else.
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I cringe at “normalcy,” the verb form of “invite,” and plenty more. Those will wait for another day; for now, I just need to post for inertia’s sake.