As I travel from client to client, I often hear words that make my head explode. I’m talking about malapropisms – words or phrases that are misused or generally made up. Given the fact that these are clients, I never speak up to correct them. How do I point out that they’ve been saying their favorite phrase incorrectly for the last 25 years? I quietly bite my tongue and let them go on.
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Today, I’d like to save you all from making yourselves look like damned fools in front of your clients. Here are the malapropisms I’ve heard in the business world.
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For all Intensive Purposes: What do you mean? Purposes that are really forceful and extreme? The correct phrase is ‘For all intents and purposes’.
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Let me Reverberate: Ok, we’ll all sit back while you let sound bounce off of you. The correct phrase is let me reiterate.
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We’re in Agreance: Unless you’re in a city called Agreance, you sound like a damned fool. The correct phrase is we’re in agreement.
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Irregardless: I guess irrespective or regardless just didn’t have the punch you were looking for. So why not just create your own word? IRREGARDLESS!. This one drives me bananas. The word is ‘Regardless’.
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The Point is Mute: Well it’s not much of a point if it can’t express itself by through speech. The correct phrase is the ‘point is moot’.
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Feel free to share the ones you’ve heard, so we can openly mock them.
Actually Mike, it’s “For all INTENTS and purposes”, not “for all intense and purposes”. Just thought I’d point that one out =)
mr bacon bits, many thanks for the heads-up on the intents/purposes thing. i think i’m so so smart but didn’t know that one. i think i though that “intensive” in this case meant like “meaningful?” ouch. also, i agree on irregardless, but i have seen it in dictionaries…excuse being that the language is evolving…
Janice: Ha! All my railing and I spelled it wrong. Thanks for the heads up. I fixed it.
For years now I’ve had to bite my tongue while hearing: “I’m just talking out loud.”
Really? Because I wasn’t sure.
Correct phrase (which I don’t think should really be used at all): “I’m just thinking out loud.”
Its bad enough when everyday people do this. What gets me is when professional media types (radio announcers, TV types) make the same mistakes.
How about another article like this on mixed metaphors? Or how about made-up words like “truthiness” (from Stephen Colbert)?
How about the very popular “I’m just saying . . .” ? Have you ever heard an intelligent comment made after that phrase?
Or “the reason why is. . .”. It’s just “the reason is. . .”!!!!!
My favorite is: “It’s a doggie-dog world”
‘Dog EAT Dog world’ is what you are trying to say.
You might enjoy
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/
“Tow the line”. Excuse me, are you a cable-laying ship? If not, then what you are probably trying to say is “toe the line”, that is, stand with your toes against a chalk line drawn on the ground.
But my real teeth-grinders aren’t individual expressions, but broader crimes against grammar, like subjunctive abuse:
“If you would have told me, I would have done it!” It’s “if you had told me, I would have done it”.
derek: I’m ashamed to say that I never knew it was “toe the line”. I always thought it was ‘Tow the line” as in “everybody get on the rope and pull”.
See how smart I am?
My boss loves to say “that’s water under the dam”.
people say supposably instead of supposedly.
People at work make me nuts when they say the wrong tense of ran/run. For example –
“Have you ran those reports yet?” or “That report hasn’t ran yet” It doesn’t even sound right!
In the south, there is a tendency to make everything plural. If you’re carrying a box, people will ask, “What’s all in there?”
People don’t really talk like that. It’s just a pigment of your imagination.
From one of the blogs that I read today: “leave no steps unturned”
I pride myself in misusing words on purpose. (drives my wife nuts) Hear are some examples:
“Ambedextrous” – Yes, I can swim!
“Amphibious” – Yes, I can use both hands!
“More Pacificly” – Yes, I am describing it in greater detail.
All this can be so aggravating….
How about quick and quickly. “You need to do this quick” should be “You need to do this quickly”. Quick is an adjective.
Mike, why ever are you getting so upset? Amerficans do that all the time, make up words because they cannot master the words that already exist. The worst examples are ‘trying’ to make verbs out of nouns, people the language is rich enough and versatile enough to avoid that nasty laziness.
And you use momentarily wrongly (the collective you that is).
Arlyn,
How about priding yourself on spelling Ambidextrous correctly?
Derek,
Is that sunjunctive abuse, I would have said it is just the wrong tense being used.I don’t know if you are in the UK, but the female judge on a certain celebrity dancing programme keeps using ‘was’ when she should be usinge ‘were’ – your steps was all wrong … grrr!
How about railing against all of that meaningless business speak – user experience, holistic, at the end of the day, and so on ad infinitum.
subjunctive?
My mum spent years saying “Every mandras beast” in the workplace. Everyone around her started saying it. When I asked her what she was talking about it became clear she meant “Every man and his beast”. I think she did it on purpose to see if anyone would call her on it. Maybe your clients are winding you up on purpose.
Some that really annoy me have already been mentioned, such as “irregardless” instread of “regardless”, “supposably” instead of “supposedly” (@gary), and “be Pacific” instead of “be specific” (@Arlyn)
Another one that really grates is a phrase favoured by Jo Frost, the “Supernanny” from the TV show. She always tells the children that their behaviour is “unaseptable” rather than “unacceptable”. Perhaps the best bit ever on that show was when one of the children exhibiting this behaviour corrected her on it. “It’s unacceptable, not unaseptable!!”, shouted the 7-year old. Brilliant trash TV.
I also really hate the business-speak, which is much favoured by politicians (at least on this side of the Atlantic), phrases such as:
“going forward” – where else are going? Backward? Why not just say, “in the future”;
“joined-up thinking” – instead of what, broken down thinking?;
“Think outside the box” – I’d rather just stay in the box with the lid firmly closed, thank you, than hear this phrase;
“Pro-active” – i.e., pester someone;
“Touch base” – It just sounds dirty. Why not just talk to the person, don’t touch their base, please;
“a win-win situation” or even “a win-win-win situation” – a load of cr*p, because someone ALWAYS loses (usually me!)
That’s my €0.02 worth!
It’s nice to find folks that I can share with. At one of my favorite auctions, the auctioneer says “In the case of a tie bid, my choice takes presidents.” Wonder where he is taking them?
I’m a Southerner and I feel a need to correct the comment about our habit of pluralizing things. The correct phrase is, “What all’s in there?” (What all is in there?) It’s not plural at all. It’s like the contraction of “you all” to “y’all”. No self-respecting Southerner would use it to address one person but try to explain that to someone from up yonder. Frankly, we would be much more likely to say, “What all you got in that box?”
The one I notice is when somebody says they’re going to “flush” out an idea, when they mean “flesh.”
There’s a danger in pointing out other’s grammar/spelling mistakes. I find blatant spelling and grammar errors in novels all the time. I make them. You make them. Professionals make them.
It’s not necessarily indicative of a lazy or stupid mind, but rather the complexity of the English language.
An ex-colleague (now retired) had a couple of crackers that she’d wheel out when she thought she needed to sound important, which was quite often as she was borderline incompetent.
“It’s not rocket scientist” – It’s not rocket science, dear
and
“Let’s be pacific” instead of “Let’s be specific”
My wife, who isn’t in any way incompetent*, has a couple of her own endearing sayings, including:
“Bleeding like a stuffed pig” – not a stuck pig, then?
* I have to say this, obviously!
To follow on from Gordon, my wife also has her own interpretation of the English language, with (at least) her fair share of malapropisms, mixed metaphors etc – my favourite being “it’s not brain science”.
She maintains that it’s due to her brain working too quickly for her mouth to keep up…
Gordon, you know that rocket science is not rocket science?
I love the phrase similar to … upto a million pounds … or more! In other words, it could be anything.
Fustratred.
I get very frustrated and irritated when I hear it.
“Orientated”
After attending the class for newbies, she felt orientated in her new surroundings.
arrghh..
How about:
“I could care less” vs “I couldn’t care less”
How about when people say ‘physical’ year instead of ‘fiscal’ year.
Stephen Colbert has free license to make up wonderful, revealing words like truthiness. George Bush, while less deliberate about it, provided many hilarious malapropisms. I have sometimes verbed a noun for fun and emphasis.