Awful Expressions
I wonder whether there’s a word for people, like me, who take extreme exception to words and phrases that suddenly become fashionable. There are lots of us. We get pleasurably enraged whenever someone utters a new cant phrase.
Three that I love to hate at the moment are:
back in the day, to be honest with you and above all any form of the word curate, as in “Sophie curated the flowers for this evening” or “ Ben curated the music for the party”. Another used to be passionate about, but people seem to be less passionate about it these days.
It’s mildly entertaining to watch these expressions appearing and disappearing, often quickly, and to wonder how it happens. Who are the cliché makers, those people whose words are unconsciously mimicked by nearly everyone else? And why do the clichés disappear? Nobody really says a whole raft of any more, or at the end of the day. Some survive unfortunately. I don’t think a big ask will be disappearing anytime soon – that’s another one.