Every year since 1975, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, has published a "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness." The 2008 list, edited from more than 2,000 nominations, represents "a perfect storm of overused and abused words and phrases that pops organic, to a post-9/11 world decimated by webinars."
In short: a list that "is what it is."
One of my pet peeves, wordsmithing, made the list this year. It's a word I frequently hear to describe the work I do--work I prefer to call writing. In my experience, wordsmith is always used by non-writers and always in a tone of condescension, the way dauber is used to describe an amateur artist. "Wordsmithing" implies "tinkering" and "I'd do it myself if I had the time, but I'm much too busy and important and highly paid to dirty my hands with manual labor."
A synonym, to tweak, also needs banishment.
And while we're at it, let's get rid of verbiage, too. I suspect that people who use "verbiage" instead of "language," "writing," or "text" think they're honoring the craft by giving it a hifalutin Latiny flourish. In fact, verbiage means "wordiness": Merriam-Webster's primary definition is "a profusion of words, usually of little or no content." (Verbiage comes to us from a Middle French word, verbier, meaning "to chatter.") I don't write verbiage. I write words, sentences, and paragraphs; headlines, taglines, and copy. You want verbiage, get yourself a Verb-o-Matic.
(Via You Don't Say. Meanwhile, over at Wishydig, linguist Michael Covarrubias takes a contrarian view of this list and other "banned words" lists.)
Update: Linguist Ben Zimmer, in a post on the Oxford University Press blog, takes aim at the inclusion of decimate on the list and notes: "In general, the list is most informative as a barometer of pet peeves about language: what is it that gets under people’s skin, so much so that they think words (or particularly disliked senses of words) should be removed from the lexicon forthwith?"
Related bonus link: The Los Angeles Times's list of "cringe-worthy turns of phrase that have been cluttering up the language in recent years," including community, existential threat, and metrics. (Hat tip: MJF.) Business-school types are forever using metrics to mean measurement or gauge. But to the average American reader or listener--trust me on this; I've asked around--metrics means "something they use in Europe instead of inches and pounds." Jargon is OK when you're absolutely certain your audience will understand it; when in doubt, use a simpler expression.
Although I like the connotations of hammering away at words, which is often what it's like, I agree that "wordsmithing" is mostly used by non-writers as a sort of "well, how hard can it be?" thing. The problem is the image of this kindly village smith who makes some little horseshoes. It's too country-kitsch benign.
How about wordforging?
No one wants to go to a forge. Forges are hot and smelly and if you don't know what you're doing they can fuck you up something serious. That's more what writing's like, in my experience.
Posted by: Greg | January 02, 2008 at 11:37 AM
I've never been offended by being by being called a 'wordsmith'. To me a smith is a skilled craftsman, rather than a tinkerer. Many of my ancestors were smiths in my home town of Sheffield, hand-making knives, scythes, and other edge tools that were exported world-wide. I'm very proud of them.
I will continue to use 'verbiage' to describe the wordy and pretentious conference speech written by the Sales Director -- before I get my hands on it and, as a wordsmith, reduce its length by half.
Oh, and by the way, the main tool of a smith is a forge.
Maybe, once again, we're looking at the Atlantic divide?
Posted by: John Russell | January 03, 2008 at 05:20 AM