Style crimes

I am not a native English speaker; however, I like to think I speak English fluently. I live and work in an English speaking environment surrounded by British people and I cringe when someone tells me something and I have not the first idea what they’re talking about.

I seem to grow tired of anything that is repeated too often. Overusing phrases is certainly something the general public should notice. There was this British broadcaster, Vanessa Feltz, who tried and waged an unsuccessful hate campaign against at the end of the day in the meaning of ‘ultimately’. (There’s nothing wrong with the use of this phrase in its literal meaning). Please, take notice when I list the alternatives used to summarise and conclude presenting a point of view: ultimately, in the end, after all, when all is said and done, in the final analysis. Try using these more often to avoid sounding rather silly (check the video clip from popular British talk-show Jeremy Kyle Show and see exactly what I mean).

Among many other cliches there are some that especially make my blood boil when overused and are complete gibberish: I’m not being funny, basically, to be honest, can’t get my head round it (seriously, what a ridiculous thing to say anyway! How can you get your head round something?). Please notice that I am not having a go at people using the expressions but overusing them does seem to be a problem. It comes to the point where phrases lose their meaning appearing randomly in various parts of a sentence filling in the gaps which the speaker couldn’t have filled more efficiently due to their vocabulary limits. Language is alive and changes which I love about it and perhaps at the end of the day will eventually become an official idiom rather than an awkward cliché.

The abuses have driven John Humphrys to write a book about the growing misuse of the English language ’Lost for words’.  He describes tautology (expressing the same idea twice in different words) as the linguistic equivalent for having chips with rice. For instance, there’s no need to say general consensus since consensus is a general agreement therefore an adjective general should be, in this case, omitted. Similarly we have silly creations such as return again, future prospects, repeat again, safe asylum. Other usages to which I object are personally I feel and at this moment in time. Based on an appeal to logic, I feel makes it personal enough and there’s no need to add personally. It is proper though to use personally to mean ‘with the person being present’ as in I’ve spoken to him personally.You don’t need in time either because moments are obviously periods of time.

So yeah, you know, basically I'm finished like. At the end of the day, I'm not being funny, I personally feel I can't change how people speak...