ACTUALLY, WOULD THESE WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, MAN UP, AND LEVERAGE THEIR AWESOMENESS TO LITERALLY, OR AT LEAST BASICALLY, DIE AN OLD SCHOOL DEATH?

1/2/20

Around this time of year, Lake Superior State University releases a list of trite expressions and/ or words of the waning year and wishes several to be banished from the English language.   As something of a wordsmith who admires this effort but lacks the academic pedigree and the desire to hang out in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in the winter months necessary to join in this worthy pursuit, yours truly has decided to issue my own list of trite expressions that simply won’t go away after infecting the language for years.   A commentary follows each expression where necessary and/or additive:

·         Taking the victim of an accident or a crime to “the hospital.”    Is there only one hospital?

·         “Literally”   “Literally” literally means “literally,” not “intensively.”   This is literally the most incorrectly used adverb in the English language.

·         “Actually”   “Actually” is actually necessary in only a fraction of the instances in which it is used.  Unfortunately, though, it has become the three-syllable adverbial manifestation of “like,” “you know” or simply “duh” or “uh.”  While “literally” is the most incorrectly used adverb in the English language, “actually” is the most lazily used.

·         “Awesome”   Once, only God was truly awesome.  Is there nothing that is not awesome any more?   Didn’t think so.

·         “Disrupt”   Not everything needs to be disrupted; hence, not all disruption is meritorious.   And “disruption” is not a synonym for “progress.”  This one seems to be mercifully dying.

·         “Punching above one’s weight”   Unless we are talking about the late, great Sugar Ray Robinson, this expression should be knocked out.

·         “Old school”   This was a terrific expression when I made it up many years ago, but it lost its zest after about the, oh, ten thousandth or so time it was used.   Yours truly’s ongoing efforts to find an adjective that captures his essence have hence literally been disrupted by my revulsion at the notion of resorting to triteness of expression.

·         “The (insert the name of an industry or business activity here) space”  In the investment world, we used to refer to the “XXXXX industry;” now our younger and clearly more enlightened counterparts refer to the “XXXXX space.”   Three syllable words must be difficult for many of the wizards of Wall Street.

·         The trifecta of verbal indolence:

o   “Not on my watch”

o   “The last time I checked…”

o   “Can you say….?”

Fortunately, it looks like all three have been taken to the hospital, hopefully too late.

·         “Think outside the box”   Anybody who actually thinks outside the box would not use the expression “think outside the box.”

·         “Leverage,” as in “leverage” resources.   As a finance guy, I understand “leverage” to be a three- syllable word for debt, used by many of my fellow finance guys who want to justify their (except in the case of yours truly) astronomical pay packages by displaying an extensive vocabulary that in turn demonstrates their wisdom.   As a normal person, I understand the world “leverage” to mean something someone gains by standing a certain distance from something one would like to move with a properly angled lever.  But in neither capacity have I ever understood “leverage” to mean “employ” or “employ effectively.”

·         “Man up”   People who use the expression “man up” usually are displaying their own need to generate and manifest more testosterone, albeit usually not literally.

• “We’re going to move this process into decision making mode.”   People, usually corporate types, who employ such verbal gobbledygook need to get off their hindquarters and get something done.   But, being corporate types, they will avoid such action because actually doing something, rather than talking about doing something, has the potential to get them into trouble.
• “Bend the cost curve”   This one, like a few of the aforementioned, seems to be dying a well-deserved death.   However, one still hears this verbal demonstration of the danger of learning just a little (very little) economics and developing an irresistible urge to display said limited knowledge.   Endless discussion of the yield curve and positing a seemingly impenetrable wall dividing growth and value stocks are manifestations of the same malady.

Two concluding points:

·         Somewhere up there, Sisters Monica, Cabrini, et. al., are either proud of yours truly for learning the grammatical lessons they sought to impart or sharpening up the old rulers to display their dismay at his having failed to digest the lessons on tolerance they likewise imparted.   I’m betting on, or at least hoping for, the former.

·         I will get back to politics, economics, finance, and the like.  I promise.   But this was a post that I have actually been planning to write for years…literally.