Stupid words.

For years, decades, I earned my daily bread in the advertising trade, working in advertising agencies. My job was on the creative side, developing strategies that would most effectively lure customers, then turning them into ads in whatever media was required. The goal was always to use ideas and words and pictures and music to arouse interest and keep viewers or readers or listeners watching or reading or listening long enough to absorb whatever message we wished to convey. We always believed the audience deserved some level of respect in exchange for our intrusion into their lives.

But most people in the advertising business, like most people in most businesses, do not care all that much. They don't care if the advertising is creative or entertaining or inventive or unexpected. They are just putting in the time, putting their emphasis on looking and sounding good in the endless supply of meetings, both within the agency and with clients. They do not want to rock the boat; “give the clients what they want,” is the force that motivates them.

And that is why most advertising falls somewhere between invisible and inane.

That is why some guy in a tie somewhere decided that holding a “sale” is no longer good enough. That the public is no longer interested in discounted prices. That calling a sale a “sales event” would excite the audience (for whom they have little respect) into showing up in frenzied droves and parting with their money. After all, isn’t the very idea of an “event” exciting? Wouldn’t it deserve three—no, four—exclamation points in social media?

While this earth-shattering development has little effect on audiences, it somehow resonates with advertisers. So it’s, so long to a “sale,” and hello to a “sales event.” Car companies, in particular, have made adding “event” to a “sale” mandatory, it seems. And “sales event” has disseminated, propagated, and circulated until it is ubiquitous.

Most people probably don’t even notice it, just as they don’t notice most of the dumbed-down, simple-minded advertising messages that interrupt every aspect of their lives. But no one, I daresay, is so excited, so electrified, so hypnotized by a “sales event” as opposed to a mere “sale” that they rush right out and gleefully part with their money.

I could be wrong. I haven’t been in a client meeting in years. But one thing’s for sure—somebody is stupid when it comes to “sales events.” It could be me.

Really Stupid Words, Chapter 22.

You hear a lot about “hacks” nowadays.

Not, in this case, “hack” as a means to cut or sever or chop with repeated irregular or unskillful blows, as most dictionaries define the word’s original and primary meaning.

Nor does it conform to another longstanding sense of being unable to deal with a given situation successfully, as in “he can’t hack it,” or “he’s a hack writer,” both of which can be seen to have evolved from the original meaning.

Nor is the current usage related to the meaning of the word that came along with the rise of computer networks and the internet, where people “hack” into computer systems where they have no business being, whether for fun or to do damage—chopping their way in, so to speak.

No. The current buzzwordy use of hack has to do with something altogether different, and I am not sure how or why it applies. You hear a lot these days about this “hack” or that “hack” that seems (apparently) to be a shortcut or something of the sort. Just lately, I have been advised of “hacks” for life, fishing, parenting, productivity, health, housekeeping, heating and cooling, cooking, cleaning, clothing, crafts, decluttering, organization, school, math, travel, and on and on and on…

On a side note, “hack” seems to be popular with the same people who are fond of “side hustle” (which sounds to me like being up to something no good) and “the gig economy.”

I cannot fathom the word “hack” in this most recent—but already clichéd—usage. I guess I wish there were a “hack” for understanding stupid words.

Really stupid words, Chapter 21.

Sometimes, perfectly good words get overused and abused and stretched to the point that they become stupid. One such word that has been stirring my curmudgeonly coals of late is “journey.”

At its core it is a fine word, describing “travel or passage from one place to another,” the key word being place. While it can be suggestive of other things, place generally indicates a physical location. That notion is forgotten more often than not nowadays when it comes to journeys.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu voiced what must be the most famous saying about “journey” when he said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” The implication of moving from one physical location to another is surely implicit, if not explicit. Still, the saying and the source have contributed to the dilution of the meaning of journey. More to blame, perhaps, is a bumper sticker phrase of uncertain origin and many iterations: “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Notice how the idea of going from one actual, physical place to another is missing, watering down the meaning of “journey” to the point where it can be applied to anything, everything, and nothing.

The New Age (which elevated Lao Tzu and his sayings) and all its psychobabble latched onto the word back in the 1970s and there has been no turning back. Healing and transformation became a journey, along with your health and wellness journey, your recovery journey, your emotional growth journey, and your soul journey. And, of course, our spiritual and religious journeys.

Now, even unfortunate situations like fighting cancer have become journeys. So have trivial situations, like my hair loss journey. Grief became a journey. Education is a journey. So is weight loss. Business has latched onto the idea with a passion, tracking customer journeys, service journeys, training and development journeys, leadership journeys, workday journeys….

Writers are not immune to the infection. Seldom have I attended a conference where the “hero’s journey” wasn’t held up as the essence of most any and every piece of literature. (I confess ignorance of its finer points.) And, of course, we are each on our personal writing journey.

That’s all for now. While the “journey” journey may be an endless journey, we’ve come far enough on our journey for one day.

Really stupid words, Chapter 18.

So, there’s word—a tiny two-letter word—that has been annoying me for some time now.

So I have been considering writing (whining) about it.

So, when several friends expressed similar irritation with hearing it ad nauseam, that spurred me to get it done.

So, here goes.

It seems there are hundreds, thousands, millions of speakers of North American English who can no longer start a sentence or other statement with any word that isn’t “so.” If your ears are like mine, they hear it all the time. All the time. Now, “so” is a useful word and has an important place in our language when used properly, usually to indicate a result: They said it, and said it, and kept saying it, and would not stop saying it, so I got annoyed.

But “so” has taken its place with other overcooked, overused, worn-out words and phrases and sounds such as “I mean,” “y’know,” “like,” and the ever-popular “um” that have insinuated themselves into our speech to the point that they are thrown about willy-nilly, automatically, without thought, and, I suspect, without the speaker even knowing it. Or, if they do know, without care.

So, what do we do? Perhaps we should arm ourselves with little bells or whistles and give a ding or toot whenever we hear it. I doubt all the racket raised would be any more annoying than its cause.

So, what do you think?

 

Really Stupid Words, Chapter Four

American English is a rich language. It’s always changing and evolving. New words and usages come and go. Many that come along are helpful. They clarify, they improve, they enhance and enrich.

But some are just plain stupid.

They obfuscate, they complicate, they confuse. They reveal a lack of understanding.

One that really sets my teeth on edge (sometimes) is “issue.”

Now, this one is complicated because “issue” is a word of many meanings. Magazines have issues. Births have issues. Politics has issues. Discussions have issues.

People do not.

Ninety-nine times out of ninety-nine, when someone says they have an “issue” what they really mean is they have a problem.

What’s wrong with “problem”? Everyone knows what it means and, unlike “issue,” it means pretty much one thing.

But some time ago, within my memory, someone in the psychobabble business decided “problem” was negative, and, well, we can’t have that, can we. If we use a word like “problem” that may have negative connotations, we might hurt someone’s feelings.

“Issue” is a whole ’nother thing. Nothing negative about “issue.” In fact, in this use, there’s really nothing much at all in the word “issue.”

Except that when it gets abused like this, I, for one, have a problem.

Really Stupid Words, Chapter One

American English is a rich language. It’s always changing and evolving. New words and usages come and go. Many that come along are helpful. They clarify, they improve, they enhance and enrich.

But some are just plain stupid.

They obfuscate, they complicate, they confuse. They reveal a lack of understanding.

Take “impact” for example.

Impact used to be a perfectly fine word with a clear, precise meaning. The definitions in my Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, published in 1994 (which may seem ancient to some, but it’s not that long ago), can be summed up as: to strike forcefully, forceful contact or collision.

Pretty simple.

Since then, the word has been hijacked and used in a way never meant for it: as an all-purpose substitute for affect and effect.

It’s used regularly and routinely by people who cannot figure out the difference between affect and effect and when to use which and why. So, they surrender and use impact in place of either and both. “Forceful collisions” everywhere shudder at the thought.

You probably heard someone abuse impact today. I wish I didn’t have to hear it anymore. It’s likely to impact my mood and have a negative impact on my state of mind.