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It was what it was: Banned words and phrases

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by wedgewood, Dec 31, 2007.

  1. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    Givin' a shout out. If you're going to give a shout out, then by all means, SHOUT!
     
  2. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    Saying "when I was coming up" instead of "growing up" or "I was your age."
     
  3. RedSmithClone

    RedSmithClone Active Member

    They are who we thought they were!
     
  4. ondeadline

    ondeadline Well-Known Member

    Mel Kiper Jr. prefaces one out of every four sentences with, "you look at."
     
  5. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    I'll give you that one, but can we still use "crown their asses?"
     
  6. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Point well taken.

    Now get me a beer, noob.
     
  7. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    And J_D, did you give P.J. Soles the Aunt Jemima treatment for her 57th?
     
  8. T2

    T2 Member

    As to the original list, I agree that most of the 19 are overused or misused. Especially "organic." It meant one thing to Frank Lloyd Wright. It meant something completely different to the professor in my inorganic chemistry class. It means something else entirely to your average health-food nut.

    However, I quibble with the inclusion of "waterboarding" and "surge" and "post 9/11." The first two are the actual names of certain activities of our government, and the third is the most concise way of expressing "after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

    Just because people are tired of hearing about these things doesn't mean that the terms themselves are overused.
     
  9. alleyallen

    alleyallen Guest

    The problem is, phrases like 9/11 are tossed out in place of legitimate responses. Definitely overused in that sense. It would've been like FDR dropping in a Pearl Harbor reference every third line, especially in 1944 or 1945, when the tide clearly had turned.
     
  10. ondeadline

    ondeadline Well-Known Member

    What about "went missing" or "vanished" in stories about people who are missing.

    "Went missing" almost makes it sound like somebody suddenly decided, "hey, I think I'll go missing." The context usually is something like, "they 'went missing' on Thursday" when you simply could say that "they haven't been seen since Wednesday."

    Vanished? Short of a magic trick, they didn't vanish.
     
  11. alleyallen

    alleyallen Guest

    Fixed.
     
  12. MCbamr

    MCbamr Member

    Not a phrase, but I'm about sick of seeing every football player who scores take a dive into the end zone. Who was it said to act like you've been there? Only thing worse is celebrating every three-yard run or every tackle.
     
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