Writers tend to be picky about words. Also, about grammar and punctuation, and sentences without a verb, such as this one. I plead guilty. One of my pet peeves is the overuse of the exclamation point. It makes me crazy!!!
I did not come here to vent about punctuation, however, but to weigh in on contemporary usage and help you avoid the pitfalls of it. Language is organic. Words, idioms and popular phrases come and go like the tides, or Elon Musk’s attention span. In the late 60s and early 70s, the heyday of tie-dyed tee shirts, antiwar protests and the Grateful Dead, you wouldn’t go very long without hearing someone say “Far out” or “What a bummer” or “Let’s catch some rays.” Paul Simon wrote a whole song about ‘Feelin’ Groovy.’ It’s a sweet, uplifting tune, but when was the last time you heard anyone use the word ‘groovy’?
Maybe there is a linguistic expert out there who can offer insight into how and why some words and phrases become tired from overuse and fall out of favor, while others, such as the one you are about to read, go on for an eternity. While I try to figure that out, let’s look at some current jargon and usage that needs to be put out to pasture.
“I didn’t have that on my Bingo card.” The first few times I heard this expression I thought it was extremely clever. It was so clever that it almost immediately became tiresome from overuse. Put away your Bingo card unless you want to play Bingo.
Stakeholders. A LinkedIn favorite and staple of the job-hunting world, employers are forever looking for candidates who can thrive in a fast-moving corporate ecosystem and create synergy with key stakeholders in the consumer-facing space. If I were the hiring person, I’d disqualify any candidate who uses the word ‘stakeholder’ more than once in the interview.
Hard stop. I have strong feelings about stopping. When I am driving and get to a red, octagonal sign, I stop. It’s not hard. It’s not soft. It’s just a stop. Do yourself a favor and stop yielding to the urge to say, ‘Hard stop,’ when there really is no such thing.
It is what it is. I’ve been trying to unravel what this means, but if something is what it is, I don’t have much to add.
Best in Class. Automakers tout a vehicle’s ‘best-in-class’ handling. Computer companies boast about a laptop’s ‘best-in-class’ graphic capabilities. Consulting firms promote their ‘best-in-class’ thought leadership that will achieve measurable results by impacting Hearts & Minds in their workplace culture. Meh.
At the end of the day. What generally happens to me at the end of the day is that I go to bed. I get that this phrase has gained currency as a way to take a longer view of a situation, but what about the end of the week, month, year? At the end of the day seems totally arbitrary.
Influencer. I have to confess that I never thought of the ability to influence people as a vocation. I thought it was something that happened organically. I was wrong. Through the power of YouTube, TikTok and other social media outlets, it’s now quite apparent that people can make a handsome living being an Influencer, so much so that their title is written with a capital I. Jimmy (MrBeast) Donaldson’s videos of stunts, philanthropic deeds and assorted other ventures has earned him 368 million YouTube followers, which is 368 million more than I have. All power to MrBeast, but I still don’t know what an Influencer is.
Jimmy Donaldson a/k/a MrBeast
This. (But not that.)
Bandwidth. Like Bingo Card, I really liked this when I first heard it about eight years ago, when an editor who was deep into a manuscript repair and said he didn’t have “the bandwidth” at the moment to talk about a new book project. The bandwidth I grew up with was a range of radio frequencies, and the reason my AM car radio could pick up Detroit Tiger games when I was driving at night in upstate New York. More recently, bandwidth has been used to describe the maximum amount of data that can be transferred from a server to a computer. I am afraid I am running out of bandwidth to add anything more to this list, so I am just going to come to a hard stop.
Good news . . . Coffey Grounds is extending its unprecedented ‘free book’ offer for all subscribers to our new Coffey Club Select option. Sign up for an annual subscription and get a free, personally inscribed copy of The Boys of Winter, my New York Times bestseller about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and the so-called Miracle On Ice. Coffey Grounds will even pay for shipping, but orders must be placed by March 3.
