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Bullsh*t words/expressions that have got to go! 2020 Edition
Bullsh*t, non-English expressions that make people irredeemable to me as soon as they use one. Their original English language meanings have been distorted beyond recognition, and in many cases they now exude that unctuous quality that Our Overlords use to conceal their insidious totalitarianism.
No free thinker as defined as such in 2020 should ever use these cringeworthy expressions. They belong to the mob.
Feel free to add. We need a complete list. I am sick of:
validate
platform, especially as in “give a platform to”
share
problematic
move forward
reach out
story/stories
conversation
inclusive (x 1000000000!!)
diverse/diversity
community/communities
privilege
listen
support
ally
voice(s)
brown
I am actually tempted to add “white” and “Black.”
Those definitely don’t mean what they actually are.
Published in General
I use “narrative” sometimes. I feel bad about myself afterwards.
You forget to capitalize “White”, you grammar racist. Hehe . . .
Here’s one I am going to lift out of the message we got from Firefox: “dismantle”.
As in: We have a lot of work to do to dismantle systemic racism. One way to start is by listening to Black writers and thought leaders.
White isn’t capitalized. Black is. That’s the subtlety of it. No Ivy League University for you, Sir!
Worse than that; I’m “offended” and feel “threatened.”
This was all started because of Wednesday Addams.
I particular dislike:
Nice!!!
I’d add conversation, white supremacy (unless discussing actual 1930s-40s Nazis), intersectionality, and largely peaceful to your list.
To “reimagine” policing, or whatever.
Another abomination: “educational justice” as in
“those at the greatest distance from educational justice” will be the top priority to be allowed to return to in-person school when the pandemic eases — (I just read this on my grandson’s school district’s plan to reopen in the fall).
I don’t like it when Marxist words and phrases are used by non-Marxists:
class
proletariat
the masses
“Positivity” drives me crazy. I don’t know if it’s a real word but it sounds idiotic to me when I hear it.
The one that drives me up the wall is “[my/your/his/her/their] truth,” as in, “This is my truth,” or, “That’s your truth.” That idea of subjective truth is the essence of both a bullsh!t phrase and a horsesh!t phrase. There is no such thing as “my truth” or “your truth” – there is only the truth.
Two examples:
“The sun rises in the east.”
As east is defined, this is always true. It can be measured by instruments, and is acknowledged as a fact. This is objective truth.
“Sunrise is the best time of day.”
This cannot be measured or determined as an objective truth in anyway. This is a wholly subjective statement.
“Well, sunrise is the best time of day. That’s my truth.”
The only truth to that statement is that the speaker holds that subjective belief. There is a word for that: It is an opinion.
So many people use the “[my/your/his/her/their] truth” phrase to imbue their personal perspectives this aura of infallibility, as if these are beliefs that are so important that they cannot be challenged. But they’re just opinions. And they’re almost always infantile, asinine, ones that wouldn’t stand up to a lick of scrutiny were they not protected behind that wall of psychotherapy babble known as “This is my truth.”
*Any* modifier on “justice”. Social, Economic, Racial, environmental, etc.
YES. There are three common genders: Masculine, feminine and neuter. And these do not pertain to sex, “except jokingly”. It depresses me when I see conservatives use the new and false meaning of “gender” in place of “sex”. When they control the language they win the debate — actually the debate doesn’t mean what you think it means.
And “tribal”! Who popularized that. Jonah? Tribal this… Tribal that… Tribal the other. When one uses the word tribal it misstates the actual meaning and replaces other more appropriate words — such as “factional”. And I’ve only ever seen it used except as a veiled pejorative. (And besides, it’s could very well be denigrating to Indigenous-Americans — which would be cause for cancellation.)
That is all. Have a good day :)
How about anything ending with -phobia? Except actual phobias, of course.
And capitalist.
This is corporate-speak, but a pet peeve of mine is turning a noun into a verb. “De-risk” used in a corporate context sets my teeth on edge. “We’ve de-risked that.” Oh yeah?
“Our corporate culture contains a vision of investment in sustainable, renewable and responsible human resourcing” is sooo 2019.
I have a particular antipathy to the term “influencer.”
All over Cape Cod, I have seen new signs outside restaurants that say “To Go or Live.” It took me the longest time to figure out that it wasn’t a deep philosophical statement but a way to say that patrons could eat their dinner on the premises or take their dinner “to go.” I kept reading a short i in “Live.” :-)
and “workers” rather than “employees.” :-)
Personnel used to mean Persons. Human Resources doesn’t mean Persons, it means something more generic and distant, a species of animal. And Resources is even more dehumanizing; it doesn’t even necessarily refer to an animal; and is even rapacious, like digging a mine from which you take all the ore out and leaving a big hole in the ground.
Each of those words can be used in a sentence (I was working on a very long one using most of them–it had to do with a conversation between neighbors in a gated community as to whether or not to validate tickets for guest parking…etc). But, yes, in the currently used contexts…hanging offense. Okay, I’d settle for public flogging.
Some of the others suggested in comments truly have no reasonable context and should be stricken.
Then there are the ones that just grate: “Grow” as in the economy, or a budget, or anything but crops. Aaargh! And “impact” used as a verb. Aaargh!!
This one is probably thoroughly lost, but I’d really like to have “gay” back. And for rainbows to be benign and pretty instead of a political statement (have you noticed there’s now a brown–and sometimes a black one, too– stripe at top of the rainbow flag? Special, since black and brown can be mixed from rainbow colors, yet now have to have their own stripes; I guess they matter more).
Ah yes “MARGINALIZED”. How could we forget?
We Need to Have a Conversation About “cis” because it is not a word in the English language!
I would go further and go simpler – so to speak – and just add “justice”.
I have another: equity 🤮🤢
I refuse to acknowledge “heteronormative.”
An what is it with the magic word “agency”? What does it mean? Freedom? Freedom to take responsibility and to decide for oneself?
I wonder if it’s the leftwing answer to “freedom.” It has that administrative, institutional quality they seem to find so sexy.