WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!

Less is always more when using phrases

When I first started writing a grammar column, I heard from many humorously irritated word people. One was grumpy about phrases that just sound silly to him.

This man, whom I'll call Fred, was tired of hearing about businesses being "shuttered." When was the last time you saw shutters on a place of business? Why not just say the business has closed or has been shut?

Fred also has no love for the word "referenced."

The Pogues referenced Brendan Behan in a couple of their songs.

In most cases, it would be a little more reader-friendly to just say "alluded to" or "referred to."

But Fred wasn't finished. Have you ever heard a person you know use "dust-up" instead of "argument?"

We hear about dust-ups on TV and in the newspaper sometimes. But you generally don't hear:

My sister and I had a real dust-up last night about who deserved the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Regular people would say, "argument" or "disagreement" or "heated discussion."

And people really don't need to say, "The vacuuming has to be done on a daily basis." Fred would say it's simpler to say:

"The vacuuming has to be done daily."

I saved Fred's best one for last.

With all due respect, this painting that cost thousands looks as if a 4-year-old created it.

Basically, a person who starts out a sentence with "With all due respect" truly means, "Your opinion means nothing to me, and I'm about you give you my take on this."

And now, the weather

I find it funny when an announcer says an event was canceled because of weather. We have weather every day. More likely it was bad weather, such as a steady rain, that caused the cancellation.

And on to sports

A co-worker mentioned the sports term "rally from behind." Can you ever remember a team rallying from ahead?

Tautology

I have written a lot about tautology without knowing it had a name. It's needlessly saying what you have just said. Some examples of this repetition:

12 noon (noon)

major disaster (disaster)

a pair of twins (twins)

completely surrounded (surrounded)

totally unanimous (unanimous)

gather together (gather)

A news broadcast a while back had a headline that said, "Man Killed to Death."

You could have known

Wrong: Could of, should of, would of.

It almost hurts to see that. Incorrect spelling of these are because of the contractions with the word "have." It does sound as if you're saying "could of." But this is what you're saying:

Could've, should've, would've.

Too intense

Some people like to emphasize a point by saying things such as:

For all intensive purposes, this is my leather jacket.

But what they mean is:

For all intents and purposes...

Yes, it's much better to use the correct phrase. But why one that uses many words when what you really mean is "essentially?"

Sources: The Associated Press Stylebook, Daily Writing Tips, Fred Kirsch, Washington State University

ActiveStyle on 10/17/2016

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