this morning's rrr radio show really struck a chord with me on the issue of excessive use of frilly words. Example: why do people use the word "paradigm" when they mean "example" or "standard"? what's up with that?? and what's with people's habit dropping the m-bomb ("milestones") like their lives depended on it? can't they just say "event" or "thing" or even "stuff that happens"?! maybe i'm just some illiterate hick who strangely enough can now see the wisdom in pauline hanson's pleas to "please explain?" the late but great mitch hedberg took a (maybe unintentional?) potshot at the thesaurus-guzzling set when he uttered his joke about his heavy use of word "totally":
"I totally use the word "totally" too much. I need to change it up and use a word that is different but has the same meaning: 'Hey Mitch do you like submarine sandwiches?' 'Oh! all-encompassingly!'"
...and no doubt the caller on the radio also had good intentions when he confessed to calling someone an "octagenarian" instead of an "old c---"! while the use of crude expletives (aw hell...i mean cuss words!) is uncalled for, it does raise the point again that verbosity is not the virtue that everyone thinks it is...'nuff said!!!
"I totally use the word "totally" too much. I need to change it up and use a word that is different but has the same meaning: 'Hey Mitch do you like submarine sandwiches?' 'Oh! all-encompassingly!'"
...and no doubt the caller on the radio also had good intentions when he confessed to calling someone an "octagenarian" instead of an "old c---"! while the use of crude expletives (aw hell...i mean cuss words!) is uncalled for, it does raise the point again that verbosity is not the virtue that everyone thinks it is...'nuff said!!!
