On Words

Perfidious

I heard this word somewhere recently, and it's been running through my head all day. Perfidious. Perfidious. I thought I knew what it meant, but I looked it up just to be sure: Treacherous.

Sometimes, I just like the sound of certain words. Ameliorate. Vacillate. Delineate. (Notice a trend here?) Promulgate. But my favorite word in the English language is probably quintessential. Something about it just works for me. It is the, ahem, quintessential fun word to say (!)

There are a bunch of words I quite like in German as well. Vorabredung. Anmeldung. Aufgeregt. Fernsehapparat. Vergangenheit. Beschäftigung. Ausbildung. Fortbildung. Eigentlich. Und so weiter ...

Most of those words have very average meanings - I could even write a sentence: Das Fernsehapparat Fortbildung is eigentlich total aufgeregt. In der Vergangenheit habe ich die beschäftig Fortbildung vergessen. Na ja, ach so, das ist die Warheit. Das Satz ist auch total Quatsch. (Loosely translated: The television conference is totally exciting. In the past, I totally forgot the career seminar. It's true. And this sentence is complete nonsense.)

But didn't it seem impressive? You should hear me say it, if I turn on the German accent - it sounds totally cool.

With my mind on words (they're kind of my thing - studying journalism and English will do that to you - I absolutely love the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves), I read the annual list of words/phrases we should retire. Most of these, I don't think I've ever used. But I definitely won't use them now - they're banished after a year, or more, of misuse.

The list includes:

• perfect storm
• Webinar
• waterboarding
• organic
• wordsmith/wordsmithing
• author/authored
• post 9/11
• surge
• give back
• "blank" is the new "blank"
• Black Friday
• back in the day
• random
• sweet
• decimate
• emotional
• pop
• it is what it is
• under the bus

My husband (who lives in the corporate world) assures me that several of these are very overused and ought to be banned. I'll take his word for it. And I'm going to add my picks:

• my bad (I sooo hate this expression)
• yada-yada (who ever said this before they heard it on Seinfeld? It's been off the air for 10 years - enough already)
• grandbaby (it's a child - that expression sounds so hokey)
• retail therapy (just overused - put it to rest)
• senior moment (equally overused)

Generally, I know a word is past its expiration date when it reaches the vernacular of my husband's grandmother - she's a sweet woman, but on the cutting edge, she is not. Once she's using a slang term, you know it's about three years past its prime.

I'm a big believer in the philosophy of Ernest Hemingway, who felt there was no point in using a 25-cent word when the nickel word would do just as well. It's the, ah, "quintessential" writing paradigm that I emulate. It's possible I'll forget, but you won't hear "my bad" - a simple "oops!" will have to suffice.