I’ve been meaning to look at the thread on corporate speak, but haven’t found time to do so–I wonder if that suggestion has been made there. If the standard is clarity, then “plays a factor” fails. If you want to object to the objection on the grounds that it’s unacceptably hoity-toity, that’s fine.
In any case, I assume you are being facetious with your proposed remarks to Bob. For most values of Bob, the response is likely to be rather negative…
"Congresscritters bugs the hell out of me. “Critters” are cute creatures from the woodlands or garden. Congresspeople are not.
I suspect that’s a suburban view of “critter”. In the more rural view IMO, “critters” are varmints for shootin’ and maybe eatin’. They’re not good actors around the homestead, they’re irritants up to no good.
Raccoons are archtypical critters, and all they want to do is steal your garbage and make a noisy mess at 2am.
Yes, annoying small woodland creatures. Sort of a diminutive for creature. Mitch McConnell or Ted Cruz will never be in the same sphere as a critter.
Heh.
(that is not a word)
The “wrong” usage is not dying out. It has just about crossed over into being accepted as a correct variant.
This. In the taxonomy of language abuses, I find it relatively harmless, probably because it’s usually just a preface to a specific argument about to be made, and hence is itself little more than a filler phrase. The language abuses that really bother me are the obfuscating kind – whether done deliberately or out of ignorance – that make your head spin trying to make sense of them.
Tirelessly. No one just works hard anymore; they always work tirelessly. Every time someone at my company gets praised it’s for their “tireless” work. One non-native English speaker recently wrote a note of praise because someone had worked “tiredly” and I was like Yes! Me too!
I could start a whole thread on phrases that annoy me from food/cooking sites (newspapers/magazines as well as blogs). The ones really bugging me today are:
“Nourishing” soups/bowls/etc - isn’t that the point of eating?
“Shatteringly crisp” (usually for some version of fried chicken) - interesting phrase the first time I read it, but dozens of times later, it’s just trite and silly.
“Warming” spices - makes my eyes roll. I must have read that 30 times this holiday season.
These all fall into the category of “jaw-droppingly annoying”.
My favorite cooking show annoyance is when the host is sauteeing some onions or perhaps carrots. Then dumps in about 1/2cup of sugar while saying “… This will bring out the natural sweetness of the {vegetable}.”
To which I say “No, you ignorant diabetes-inducing obesity-mongering twit! You just completely masked the flavor of the {vegetable} behind a wall of plain white sugar sickening sweetness. Yecch!”
At least I now know I can save a lot of time by turning off that show right then. Whatever follows “brings out natural sweetness” can’t be good.
I think it arose to fill a semantic gap for Congresspeople and Senators, since there isn’t a term to apply to both. When I read Congresscritters I assume it means members of both houses, whereas Congresspeople would apply to just the House.
While these terms are silly, they remind me of Anthony Bourdain complaining that there are only so many ways you can describe a good meal; only a few synonyms for delicious. Which doesn’t mean you have to copy everyone else. But Bourdain was Shakespeare compared to most foodies.
I think it serves a purpose, when your competition for food is McDonalds and Burger King.
I agree, but I do use “in order to” sometimes, if I have several other "to"s in that sentence, especially if they’re directional "to"s and not prepositional "to"s. “His weight shifted from side to side in order to release nervous energy” sounds less ambiguous to me.
Who are you watching who does that? Sounds kind of nasty. I could maybe see adding a teaspoon of sugar to a couple of sauteeing onions or something like that, as it would slightly increase the sweetness without being overwhelming. But a lot? That’s just candied onions!
Actually the terminology there is all messed up – not sure if it was always that way. “Congress” properly refers to both Houses. Members of the Senate are called “Senators” but the language seems to have hit a roadblock when it comes to a parallel nomenclature for a member of the House of Representatives, and for some reason “Congressman” came into use, with no particular care either for what to call a woman in that position, or the fact that technically Senators are also Congressmen (or women).
Both problems are solved by simply calling members of the House “Representatives”, and that’s even their official title, but it just hasn’t caught on in the language. I suspect probably because “Congressman” sounds more lofty, while “representative” sounds like it might be a traveling salesman.
I suspect that the reason is that many states call their lower house members “Representatives” as well, so by calling them “Congressmen”, it is a one-word way to differentiate them from their state counterparts.
Good point.
In Canada we have the same issue, and get around it by calling a member of the federal House of Commons a “Members of Parliament” (MP), while a member of a provincial legislature is called an MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament).
Arrgh… “Member of Parliament”, not “Members of Parliament”.
And before some crazy Canuck gets on my case, the MPP designation is used in Ontario, but is different in other provinces and in Quebec has changed over time. Some provinces use MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly); Quebec currently uses MNA (Member of the National Assembly) but only in English. Just to keep the record straight.
I’ve only seen this done when they add maybe a tablespoon of sugar to help jumpstart the browning of the vegetables - in particular French onion soup, etc. Nonetheless, it’s not a phrase that bugs you, but the process.
Perhaps you’re right. “'Bring out” when they really mean “overwhelm” is a at best a euphemism.