Issue No. 13, February 2007
Dear Reader,
We’ve received many responses from readers about their pet language peeves, so here’s another hit list of overused expressions, annoying
contractions and just plain errors. This time the focus is on the spoken rather than the written word.
Elizabeth Cockle
Copywriter and Buzzword Banisher
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In this issue...
- More Pet Peeves
- Parting Words
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More Pet Peeves
- As time progresses: Events may progress in time, but time itself just passes (or as the song says,
goes by).
- Convo: Info and intro are pretty well entrenched now, but convo, as in
“I had a convo with...”?? If syllables are in short supply, “I talked to...” should do the job (but please save us
from “we conversated”).
- Decimate: Considering the origins of decimate in ancient Roman military practice, fewer than
one in ten examples of its common usage today deserve to be spared.
- Have yourself a nice day: Do yourself a favour and offload “yourself”. “Have a nice
day” is lame enough as it is.
- Intel: As in “I’ve got the intel on Intel”. Sounds like a top-secret intelligence operation
rather than some information, news, or even gossip you’ve just heard.
- Irregardless: Regardless or irrespective of what you might think, irregardless
is wrong (and really irritating).
- Needless to say: Needless to say, this is superfluous.
- RSVP: As in “I already sent an RSVP” or “I RSVP’d yesterday”. RSVP comes
from a French expression literally meaning “Please respond”. But you don’t hear many people saying “I already sent
a please respond” or “I please responded yesterday”, do you?
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Parting Words
“The safest words are always those which bring us most directly to facts.”
– Charles H. Parkhurst, reformist clergyman
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