Chronic chronics
Dr. Baruch Kahana
We’ve talked in the past of the horrors of corporate-speak, as well as euphemisms, fancy phrases used to soften the blow of something bad which often are so blatant as to be self-parody. Not surprisingly, the two things often are combined.
Reminder: Of nine older adults, how many live in poverty? Right. Just one. So one in nine lives in poverty.
This STILL says one million dollars dollars.
Deadly doesn’t mean fatal. It means capable of causing death. A snake is deadly. A crash is fatal. Even if the writer used fatal, you don’t need it! You already said this poor couple was killed.
We’ve talked many times about excess qualifiers, one of the great sins of cowardly writing. The president suggests the hostage release will end the war. It’s an absolute fact that it could end the war. Pick one.
We have talked about brutal clichés. This one employs the word brutal! Longtime reader Ramesh Nyberg, a retired police detective and occasional contributor, writes: "Having been on the scenes of hundreds of them (homicides), I’ve never seen a gentle one."
Night and p.m. are the same thing. Friday night at 7. Friday at 7 p.m. Pick one.
Another brutal cliché! We ask again: Have you ever seen anyone wreak anything other than havoc? And have you ever seen havoc arrive in any other way than being wreaked?
We didn’t think we could find a chronic cliché as brutal as wreaking havoc. We did!
From the mailbag: Longtime reader and occasional contributor Art Fyvolent responded to our May 25, 2025 segment on "style," specifically our calling out people who mix state abbreviations and country abbreviations: "As someone who designs a wide range of items from billboards to T-shirts, more often than not, I have to take creative liberties, or in this case, grammatical liberties, to make sure the piece looks great, communicates clearly and fits in a specific size space."
And we go to the video archives for Segment 84: News-Speak.
Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong" features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police.” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, menus, TV news graphics, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we can credit you properly. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com
Haven’t signed up for our newsletter yet? Do it now! And tell your friends!
NOTE: Eliot and Lou Ann are available for speaking engagements, and can travel. Reach us through the comments section. Just think of all of your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!