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May 25, 2013
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 Tumbrils and the English LanguagePosted on Feb 11, 2012
As George Orwell pointed out more than half a century ago, the storehouse of the English language occasionally needs a good sweep. In the hands of excited, careless or tired writers, words and phrases that once were new or uniquely descriptive become so overused that they seem to threaten the integrity of the language itself. With a broom (or rather, cartwheel) in hand, CounterPunch editor Alexander Cockburn attempts a cleaning. —ARK
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By heterochromatic, February 14, 2012 at 4:48 pm Link to this comment
let’s run Cockburn up the flagpole and see who sautes him.
Report thisBy EmileZ, February 14, 2012 at 2:27 pm Link to this comment
“Game-changer”
“terrorist”
“liberal”
“conservative”
“moderate”
“consensus”
“free market”
“big government”
“national security”
“market efficiency”
Report thisBy MeHere, February 12, 2012 at 8:35 pm Link to this comment
A. Cockburn, always excellent.
I particularly like his reference to those fashionable words which are meant to sanitize the acts of violence and corruption perpetrated by government and politicians.
On a separate topic, another obnoxious thing is the excessive use of acronyms and initialisms in extensive journalistic reports. I’d like to see their use banned or kept to a minimum.
Report thisBy willy schwarz, February 12, 2012 at 3:45 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
RE; Tumbrils and the English Language;
Bravo! Mr. Cockburn!
I would hasten to add the following to the tumbril tally;
“a level playing field”
“in your face”
“slam-dunk”
“no-brainer”
“going forward”
“the bottom line”
Report this