New Overused Word: A Prediction

The English language changes quickly and steadily. There is joy and hope in that. Impact was once just a noun, using it as a verb showed your ignorance. Now, hardly anyone remembers that. Impact is a verb, because every marketing expert promises to show you the impact of his (or her) expertise.

Book, ehow.com

There is another kind of change. Just like fads in fashion, there are words that go in and out of fashion. Heidi Klum, had she been an editor, instead of supermodel and host of Project Runway, might say, “One day it’s in, and the next day, it’s out.”

The relatively new crop of words are wearing out. “Awesome” now means, “OK, I heard you.”

“Passionate” now means “my boss wants me to do this,” at work and “my latest hobby” at home.

“Branding” –formerly a complex marketing process of logo recognition and audience expansion through service and product introduction to a bigger audience now means, “putting our logo on stuff.”

finding the right words

I’m predicting a new word for popularity. I’ve started to hear it used–and I predict it will be the new fad word. Formerly used only among artists and museum administrators, a “curator” is the expert on a museum exhibition who chooses what will be included in the exhibition and what doesn’t quite make the mark. In other words, an expert. I predict that the same people who once told us to “edit” our wardrobe will now become “curators.”

“Expert,” “guru” and “genius” have come and gone and now are synonymous with “trying to pretend we care.” So, as ‘passionate’ was replaced with ‘obsessed, ‘ the terms for someone skilled, in the know, and possessed of good taste, or at least a good eye, will become “curator.” Watch for it.

--Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach who teaches writing for business and pleasure. She follows word usage with great interest.

Buzzwords to Bury in 2009

Earlier, I did a list of new words that have gained popularity, if not legitimacy, for this year. Being a big believer in balance, I’d like to retire some words that are tired, overused, have had their meaning mangled and otherwise are just. . . .so over.

1. Get Over, or be over. “Get over it” is an unnatural state. You will not ‘get over’ a divorce, death in the family, awful financial decision or job loss. Instead, they become part of who you are today. The last person to successfully ‘get over’ something was Scarlet O’Hara getting over the Civil War. She looked at her plundered Tara, starvation, ruined marriage, destroyed relationship and said, “Tomorrow is another day.” La-dee-da-dee-da. That last one was Annie Hall. She never got over anything, but in a charming way. Her baggage was really matched luggage and she accumulated coordinating pieces.

2. Whimsical. This word is not only overly mangled, it’s mistakenly used to mean “I like it, but I don’t know why.” Whimsical means lightly fanciful, or, when used to define a person, eccentric or erratic. I don’t know how it came to describe most artwork, paint colors, fashion clothing, earrings, furniture, potted plants, and rugs, but I find it almost a dozen times a day in catalogs, magazines and newspapers. Enough already.

3. Paradigm shift. Damn, I thought this went away in 1996, but it’s back. Much like bell-bottom pants and white belts, it wasn’t that great the first time around. The second time around, shame on you. It’s a business buzz-word and it’s original meaning has been morphed to mean “what we were doing didn’t work, so we are calling change by another words so as not to panic people.”

4. C-level executives. At first I thought this meant George Bush, who is quite proud of his low C-average at Yale, or that Kathy Griffin had finally gotten off her self-appointed D-List. But I was wrong. Consultants use this to describe their aspirations, as in, “The target audience for my Success Workshop is C-level executives.” It sounds filled with self-importance and a distinct lack of interest in the people who actually do the heavy-lifting in a corporation. And I guess it sounds nicer than saying, “I charge a ton of money for my services.”

5. Verbiage. Incidentally, it’s not pronounced ver-bage to rhyme with garbage. But that meaning is closer. Merriam Webster defines it as “a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content.” It now means any copy that needs to be written. If you are going to over-use it, at least over use it with the right meaning.

6. Begging the question. another phrase that people use to mean something it does not. “Begging the question” is not at all the same as “raising the question.” Begging the question is a logic mistake in which the second half of a statement treats the first part as absolutely true, although there is nothing to support the truth of the first part of the statement. An example: “My GPS system doesn’t work because all the streets around here all have numbers.”

7. Epic-. Used as a hyphenated word. Generally followed by “fail” to mean a fall from grace, a pratfall, or plans not working out. But it has also come to mean something that works out to an opposite, as in, “That drama was so epic fail that it was a comedy.”  “Epic-” has replaced “big” or “enormous.” Let’s find something else.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and life coach. She helps people negotiate change in their life. See her work at QuinnCreative.com

New Words for 2009

Last year, the Word of the Year was W00T. A favorite of gamers, it had 15 minutes of fame and vanished.  This year, there seem to be more words for a tanking economy and social networking.

Frolleagues are the people who are both colleagues and friends. I’m not sure we need a new word for that relationship, but I’m not the approver of new words.

Frugalista is the penny-pinching sister of the fashionista.

Mousepotato is the reinvention of the computer-savvy couch potato. Hmm, I think that’s sooo 2006.

Bromance is the deep friendship, platonic, between two men who are not gay.

Hypermiling is how you save gas when it costs north of $4.00 a gallon. Take the foot off the gas and coast to a light, pull in a parking space so you don’t need to backup, go the speed limit on the freeways. There are more extreme measures, but doing a few simple things boosted my gas mileage from 24 mpg in the city to 28 mpg.

Spendy is a new word for expensive.

Helppooling or Cowpooling is sharing large shopping items among a group of non-family members.

Brickberry is an old version of a cellphone. One that doesn’t have the cool features.

Twitterrhea is waaaaay too much Twitter.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who teaches business communications and journal writing. She loves words, old and new, as long as they are clever.

New Word Needed

NOTE : 10.16.07  Winners of the drawing are Lisa, Mari Mann, and DJ.  I couldn’t draw just one winner. Congratulations!

Frequent blog commenter Pete told me that the world needs a new word for ‘blog post.’ I agree. “Blog” sounds like something my cat throw up after rolling in it. It’s not worthy. To make matters worse, blog is the whole content of a website, and we have to go to two words, “blog post,” to identify a single thing.

How efficient is that? So here’s the challenge. We need a good, useful word for a single blog post. It has to make sense, maybe even have a good explanation. (I’m always up for a good explanation.) I’ll have a drawing for a winner. If you leave a post and want to be in the drawing for a set of One Sentence Journaling Prompt Cards, let me know.

Rules:
1. Give the word and definition or story to go with it.
You can also. . .
2. Vote for another word
3. Tell me if you want to be in the drawing.

Here’s an example:
E-scroll. It ties together the old notion of words written on a scroll with the new idea of scrolling to read an entire post.

OK, your turn.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com. (c) 2007 All rights reserved.  Image: en.wikipedia.org