Okay, I'm not a very good writer, nor am I an adequate speller, but the word "quintessential" is used much too frequently.
Tony Kornheiser refers to Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe as the "quintessential sports reporter."
There is a series of role playing game books called the "Quintessential Fighter/Barbarian, etc..."
Some words should be used sparingly to avoid devaluation of their meaning. Several cuss words come to mind at this time.
Take the word awesome for example. Does it still mean "awesome," or has the meaning changed to "neat" or "cool?" Is it now an affirmation? For example,
"Hey Joe, look at my new watch."
"Awesome!"
Can a new watch truly be inspiring? I don't know for sure, but I doubt it.
I remain the quintessential blathering idiot,
Bill
"The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are."--Lord Henry Wotton
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Another word used a bit much in scifi/horror is "preternatural." Anne Rice is one of the worst offenders of this, I'd swear that word appears on every other page in "Interview with the Vampire."
When I was younger, some of the hot words were "fresh", "bad" ...somehow awesome has stayed on, but the word has lost all meaning to me.
I think everybody should be forced to read Strunk and White's grammar book. It's mostly for writing, but it's a nice way to see how language can be "toned down" but still be effective.
Not to be a real geek, but I find it to be a funny and enjoyable book and even had it on my nightstand at one point.
Another good book on English usage: Robert Graves' THE READER OVER YOUR SHOULDER. A later edition was recently published under a title that's much less fun -- something like THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
F'r instance I don't know how many times I've heard Alan Moore being called a genius. Now he's a very good writer but I don't think I'd rank him up there with John van Neumann, Mozart or Da Vinci.
Picking on sports writers and telecasters is easy game. That said, the one that annoys me the most is "obvious" and "obviously." I listen to the local sports talk guys to find out the latest about the UF football and basketball teams. I kid you not, almost every other sentence starts with or contains the word "obvious." If it's so obvious, then obviously, it doesn't need to be stated.
F'r instance I don't know how many times I've heard Alan Moore being called a genius. Now he's a very good writer but I don't think I'd rank him up there with John van Neumann, Mozart or Da Vinci.
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All depends on the man's IQ, really. So he may be a genuis, but it has nothing to do with his writing...
...I quite like the use of the word "Jerkin" in Josie and the Pussycats...
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You are a god among insects. Never let anyone tell you different.
I've always regretted the loss of the word "celibate." In proper usage, celibacy is the condition of never having married; it is not synonymous with chastity, although it has increasingly become used as such in recent years. (A vow of celibacy, for example, does not in and of itself preclude sexual activity.)
The problem is that we now have no word that precisely and exclusively captures the meaning that celibate used to signify.
I shall restate my top offender, literally. Next in line, I hate the bastardization of "ironic". Most people who use "ironic" don't understand that it is very different from coincidental. I'd also like to know when the word "have" became interchangeable with "must". "I have to go to work today." Rather than "I must go to work today." Have you noticed that when people use "have" this way they often pronounce it "half". "I half to go to work today." They wouldn't say "I half five dollars in my pocket." Am I losing my mind?
English is potentially such a wonderfully precise language that I too deplore misuse, much of which appears to derive from certain words becoming trendy ("simplistically" often seems to have usurped "simply", for instance).
But the thread is headed Word Devaluation.
There was once a word - a very short word, it only has four letters, the first of which is f, the rest of which can be guessed with a lot of luck - which was incredibly useful as a writer's tool. It was offensive, which meant it didn't get used much which, in turn, meant that it held a lot of power. Used sparingly, it was a precision tool with the power to deliver a profound shock to the listener/reader which, in turn, amped up the impact of whatever the speaker was saying.
But now that poor word is used far and wide simply to fill a space between any other two words. It no longer has any significant impact, and one of the writer's best (if used sparingly) tools has had its edge forever dulled.
There was once a word - a very short word, it only has four letters, the first of which is f, the rest of which can be guessed with a lot of luck - which was incredibly useful as a writer's tool. It was offensive, which meant it didn't get used much which, in turn, meant that it held a lot of power. Used sparingly, it was a precision tool with the power to deliver a profound shock to the listener/reader which, in turn, amped up the impact of whatever the speaker was saying.
But now that poor word is used far and wide simply to fill a space between any other two words. It no longer has any significant impact, and one of the writer's best (if used sparingly) tools has had its edge forever dulled.
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As noted previously, the word to which you refer is one that only had its "edge" sharpened to begin with by the coming to power of factions who were so fearful of their own sexuality and other such bodily functions that they rendered all references to these things obscene. Devaluation of a word, in this sense, often means it has had removed from it "value" that was added on in the first place.
If society was to decide that, say, "daisy" was the most vile and filthy word imaginable, it would be "daisy" that was being used for punctuation, being scrawled on walls, and -- very soon -- being declared to have lost its "edge" from overuse.
Agreed, JB - this means, I think, that you cannot entirely divorce language from the context of the society in which it exists: a word means what society decides it means, and the precise nature of that meaning varies along with society itself.
Which means that the price we must pay for the continual evolution of language - a good thing (notwithstanding some of the examples which have surfaced in this thread) - is that sometimes we must try to do the job a little differently, because it's no longer possible to do it with the tool we would have picked 10 years ago.
I still mourn the passing of certain words, though (as well as our four-lettered friend, I miss the days when I could explain to people that I was in a cheerful, devil-may-care mood, and not have them think that I was alternately gendered).
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie did a very funny routine about how we have "lost" the word "gay" due to its homosexual connotations. "Perfectly good word! Can't use it any more!" From which they launch into all sorts of other terms for homosexuals as if the same thing has happened to these words. "Arse-bandit! Perfectly good word! Gone!" "Screaming bender! Can't say it any more!"
And, of course, Rowan Atkinson did a hilarious skit about the headmaster of a boy's school reading the morning attendance call, and as the title of the skit informs us, there is "Nobody Named Jones".
"Anus? -- here. Buttocks? --here. Clitoris? Clitoris? Where are you, Clitoris?. . . "
Rowan Atkinson has done the variation on the headmaster calling the register thing several times, notably in the Secret Policeman's Ball concerts (all of which have, I think, been filmed and televised). The first one finished, unforgettably, with "Zobb," the double b of which reverberated wonderfully for seconds afterwards, it seemed. One of the handful of most hysterically funny things I have ever seen: I couldn't move afterwards, my sides hurt so much. I can't remember which one the "naughty bits" register was in - possibly no 2, but my memory's not that good. (Secret Policeman 1 also had the "When I were a lad" Python sketch which they also did at the Hollywood Bowl).
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore -- probably for Beyond The Fringe, but I'm not sure -- did a long bit about a jury sequestered in very tight quarters.
One male juror -- sharing a bed with another -- frets about the statistical likelihood that one of the twelve may be homosexual, and which juror in specific it might be, and just what activity really counts as "homosexual" per se.
There's a word that is 'sharpened' to such a degree that I hesitate even to imply it. But this is the internet, so I will.
Years ago, I was reading about Old London. Turns out that there was a street, evidently known for it's prostitutes, that had the name of 'GropeC*** Lane'. (The 'C***' is an example of a word that has grown more offensive over time.)
"Secret Policeman 1 also had the "When I were a lad" Python sketch which they also did at the Hollywood Bowl"
Can I be really anal here and point out that the Four Yorkshiremen sketch was originaly done on "At Last! It's the 1948 Show" and was performed by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor?
