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So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

Messages
10,903
Location
My mother's basement
Unique *AND* one-of-a-kind!
(Let’s just acknowledge the battle is lost and surrender.)

IMG_4002.jpeg
 

KILO NOVEMBER

One Too Many
Messages
1,064
Location
Hurricane Coast Florida
Unique *AND* one-of-a-kind!
(Let’s just acknowledge the battle is lost and surrender.)

View attachment 640223
Many decades back I used to work at a pipe and cigar shop. This store was in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. This neighborhood is the oldest part of the city. It contained the houses of the powerful and famous (Jackie Kennedy, anyone?) and draws a large crowd of tourists walking by.

The store owner had furnished the store with display cases and cabinets salvaged from a nineteenth century pharmacy in Pennsylvania. The effect was to draw in people who didn't smoke but who were charmed by the "antiqueyness" of the place. In an effort to broaden his customer base he added knick-knacks to the inventory and promoted these in his mail order catalogue as being "unique, one-of-kind, and different", a lesson in synonyms for us all.
 

The one from the North

One of the Regulars
Messages
159
Location
Finland
To be fair, it probably feels like December more of the year in Finland than in most places.
It always strikes me when I see English text in countries where English isn't the mother tongue.
After a record breaking heatwave in this September we are finally approaching normal autumn. Very strong possibility for night frost, days around 10°C.
With English, I agree, it does seem to be the Latin of our days. Still, it annoys me, especially that Moomin calender, I mean worldwide probably two most wellknown things from Finland are Moomins and Nokia! :)
 

Benny Holiday

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,790
Location
Sydney Australia
Hey you, fellow at Costco hawking water heaters or furnaces or whatever, I know that everybody’s gotta make a living and I wouldn’t trade places with you. But my name ain’t “Boss,” nor is it “Bro.”

Oh you have that there, too, Tony? Must be a worldwide phenomenon.
 

GHT

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,710
Location
New Forest
You can keep this getting older malarkey, what is it about ageing and night time trips to the bathroom? Out of curiosity I looked it up: "Ageing is associated with anatomical and physiological changes of the urinary tract itself that predispose to increased urinary frequency without affecting urine volume."

That eloquent description gets it right on. No matter how much I abstain from liquids, hours before bedtime, no matter that I ensure, a safety pee, as Tina describes it, after night time ablutions, I can guarantee that my bladder will wake me up during the night. Tina, as always, had the last word on it. "It's better to wake up and pee," she said, "than it is to pee and wake up."
 

KILO NOVEMBER

One Too Many
Messages
1,064
Location
Hurricane Coast Florida
Can anyone tell me what meaning "utilize" has that isn't sufficiently expressed by "use"? I've been listening to a recording of a trainer who has been repeating "we're going to utilize this or that technique/tool/algorithm" for days now.
The material covered is well organized and well presented, but he could save two syllables every time without omitting anything needed.
 

KILO NOVEMBER

One Too Many
Messages
1,064
Location
Hurricane Coast Florida
Thanks for the link. Even using the most generous interpretation of "utilize", in the situation I'm seeing, the tools/techniques/algorithms the instructor describes are being used exactly in the way they were created to be used. So, his use of utilize is bizspeak.

My thought is that such lingo arises when a person with a marginal education attempts to sound more educated than he or she is by misusing longer words where the correct, shorter words are needed. By "marginal education" I don't mean people who have no, what we in the U.S. call "post-secondary education", mostly they do.

Another example that is "fingernails on the chalkboard" to me is the use of the reflexive pronoun "myself" when the proper word is "me", (e.g., "Please contact Ms. Smith or myself if you have any further questions.")
 
Messages
10,903
Location
My mother's basement
^^^^^^
That’s it, I think. The more syllables, the more words, the more learned the speaker attempts to portray him- or herself.

And I agree that it’s not just the relatively uneducated who fall into that habit.

The best piece of advice in Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style” is “omit needless words.” I’d carry it a step further and suggest “omit needless syllables.”
 

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