Definition sought

[dieseltaylor]

Overly flowery eh!

Interestingly modern business speak is full of bull**** though flowery is probably not the output. The yanks are notorious for this - possibly because they produce most of the bumf on management. In fact any short one word has to be flowered up to be a phrase or use a multisyllabic word.

* and not forgetting the South Dakota legislature for specialology words

[Dietrich]

The Oxford if you don't mind!

I'd rate Fowler's over Oxford when it comes to usage.

Fowler's cites the OED throughout.

I may have at times come across as a keyboard-mashing refresh monkey who doesn't know his M16 from his M4 (or even his M1), but if there's one thing I know more about than the average joe (or at least the American average joe), it's the English language and how to use it.

[Michael Emrys]

The yanks are notorious for this - possibly because they produce most of the bumf on management.

Unfortunately true. A lot of it seems to have originated with flag officers and civilian Pentagon officials testifying before Congress. (Whoever first came up with 'irregardless' should have been hanged by his own intestines.) From there it just spread. It is now apparently regarded as obligatory.

Michael

[Lt Belenko]

My 18 years old son says "that's sick" meaning good. When ever he says that I make a retching sound. He's stopped using it around me.

We are constantly being unindated;) with new words and new meanings to existing words.

[ebitt]

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

Lewis Carroll

[-E]

So I was like, talking to my granddaughter. And she was like, you know? So I was like beginning to like realize, that you like, have to like like to like talk to like young one's these like days.

[Michael Emrys]

Huh??? :confused:

I think the most irritating example of newspeak that I came across was this chick interviewing a guy for some e-magazine. There was a clip of it on YouTube that I came across a couple of years ago. In two minutes she must have used the phrase 'kick ass' about 15 times. I was ready to strangle her. Instead, I stopped the clip and found something else to do.

Michael

[JonS]

Wrong choice Mike. You failed in your duty.

[Michael Emrys]

Wrong choice Mike. You failed in your duty.

I know, and I feel badly about it. But try as I might, my hand kept knocking up against the screen and I just couldn't reach her. She soooooo needed extinction too. Switching off was the best I could do.

Michael

[souldierz]

So I was like, talking to my granddaughter. And she was like, you know? So I was like beginning to like realize, that you like, have to like like to like talk to like young one's these like days.

The 'like' word must be instinctively in every teenage girls vocabulary just for them to repeat over and over again like a skipping cd.My friends and I used to laugh every time and laugh even harder when we heard, "like whats so funny guys".

[-E]

The 'like' word must be instinctively in every teenage girls vocabulary just for them to repeat over and over again like a skipping cd.My friends and I used to laugh every time and laugh even harder when we heard, "like whats so funny guys".

I always ask her what is [whatever] like? She gets a blank look... so I often explain... "you said 'he/she/it was like,' but never said what he/she/it was like?" It's gotten so bad, it's rubbing off on my wife.