Words and phrases to put a pen through
My own little styleguide weeds out irritating expressions in English - and will continue to do so...
What follows should be seen as an adjunct to the wonderful style guides of organisations such as The Guardian and The Economist. Both are available on Amazon.1
Action plan – It is just a plan. An action plan is something politicians, civil servants, and middle managers talk about to make it sound more important than it is. It is still just a plan to the rest of us. Seems to me that most ‘action plans’ produce a lot of inaction.
Arrive into - this is an americanism. We used to say just arrive at or arrive in. It is poncey and useless. Get rid of it.
Artificial intelligence or AI – This is so widely used in contexts that have nothing to do with either. All kinds of scammers are using AI as a code for getting your money now - or that of investors. If you are not sure, strike it out.
At this moment in time - You just mean now. This one really irritates me. Same applies to ‘at the present time’.
Context or in context – Very often this is just a way of padding out an article. The context should already be clear or you would not be writing it. If it isn’t clear consider writing a sidebar that explains the background.
Exciting - An overworked word used by middle managers announcing their latest dreary marketing plan. It should never be used in copy, unless in a direct quote where there is some sense of irony or other meaning that brings the story to life.
Let me be clear on this – A phrase used by politicians desperately trying to sound like they know what they are doing. There is nothing clear about this — strike it out. It usually means exactly the opposite.
Machine learning - now mostly replaced by AI, which is broadly the same thing. See the entry above on AI.
Narrative - this now appears every time anybody wants to explain something, eg ‘Their narrative is….’ Truth is it is a meaningless word, long enough to trip over. Try replacing it with viewpoint, perspective, point of view - anything but this nonsense.
Postcode lottery - sick to death of hearing this phrase. It means that services may be better or worse depending on where you live.
Share - as in ‘I would like to share this information’. As the comedian David Mitchell once said, sharing is what we do with biscuits. Tell or reveal or any one of another 100 verbs will work better and sound less like business jargon.
So - starting sentences with ‘So’ - with or without the accompanying comma - has become a fashion statement everywhere. It adds nothing to what follows and is totally unnecessary. This is particularly used by radio and TV journalists and their interviewees.
Totally unbiased – Nothing, even scientific data or journalists, can be totally unbiased. Cognitive models can be completely wrong, so even understanding data is really hard. It is also a tautology, a bit like very unique. It is either unbiased or not.
Unique – A really overused word. Few things are unique. And if they are unique, they cannot be qualified. Very unique is used constantly in broadcast journalism, particularly.
Unprecedented – Rarely is the case, cut it out. There is very little that is not precedented.
Z versus s - It is so basic. UK English uses S in words such as organisation, Americans use Z. Many young writers are unaware - because their computers are set to US English. Same applies to centre, English, centre, US, and colour and color.
Weather conditions – You mean weather. Severe weather is just bad weather. Strike it out or be more specific - eg Storm XXXXX is the most intense since diddly-blah-blah.