India's censorship board pulled plans to ban certain abusive words in broadcasting. Public outcry was loud, but not in opposition to banning words. Critics felt the banned words list wasn't long enough, reported Rediff Feb. 25. That's spot-on. There's a plethora of words that should be banned and not just crude ones. These are irritating words journalists overuse, misuse and abuse. They use these phrases to lure readers and trigger search engines. And they need to cease and desist. Here are annoyingphrases that need censoring now.
"Cringe-worthy": Every time someone does something dumb, no matter how insignificant, it's cringe
worthy. I don't know about you, but it takes a lot more than a celebrity showing too much skin to make me cringe.
"Gasp-worthy: Along the same lines as cringe-worthy, this is just exaggeration designed to titillate
readers. I reserve my gasps for big things. Awards ceremonies get-ups don't rate high enough to
inspire a gasp from me.
"Jaw-dropping": See also eye-popping. These phrases are bizarre. Jaw-dropping conjures up
macabre Dickensian images of Jacob Marley. Eye-popping is sick. And at the risk of sounding
repetitive, I'll say it. Jaw dropping is painful. Eye-popping can be deadly. I don't less loose my body
parts lightly.
"Nip slip": This facetious expression is used so often it's meme. Every time a famous person
shows the pointed end of a mammary gland, it's a "nip slip." In the scant apparel they wear, the word
"slip" is inaccurate. What's a wonder is that the areola actually stays inside. Most aren't low cut
dresses but high-waisted skirts. But who cares? Don't like it, don't watch.
"Wardrobe malfunction": Along the lines of "nip slip" this phrase is tiresome and inaccurate. Emma
Stone's dress didn't "malfunction" and show her crotch at the Oscars. It was designed to, being slit
up to the waist. It was basically a long loin cloth.
There's a world of lovely words out there just waiting to be used. Yet studies say most people use
only a few hundred. Good grief cats have better receptive vocabularies! Let's start acting as if we're
the literate ones and give our malfunctioning vocabularies a makeover.
What about you? Which words irritate you? Which expressions do you think should be gone, like
yesterday?
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