Don’t some expressions annoy you?
I regularly come across expressions that debase the English language and cause me to wince.
Expressions like “no-brainer”, designed to make the reader believe he doesn’t even need a brain in order to decide to buy something. You see it in sales letters and comments from people who’ve purchased.
“At just $27 this is a no-brainer”, “when I saw the price I realised this was a no-brainer”, and so on.
Another one is “for free”. In earlier times, when literacy skills were much higher among the general population than they are now, it would have read simply, “free”.
“Buy one and you get another one for free”. “And you also get an extra red widget for free”. Why not just say “free” instead of putting the superfluous word “for” in front of it?
Another grotesque lingo-talk expression is “BOGOF”, itself a crude attempt at humour, when the reader realises that it stands for “Buy One Get One Free”. At least it doesn’t have any redundant words in it.
But if ever it was funny, it lost its mirth-giving properties years ago now. Even so, it’s still used every time you see a newspaper advertisement for a supermarket’s new own-brand product.
The English language is so rich in words and phrases, similes and metaphors, synonyms and acronyms, that there really is no need for anyone to resort to horrible expressions such as these. But people are now so accustomed to seeing them that they think it quite normal.
Let’s fight back against all this. I’m going to talk about a few more of these objectionable things over the next few postings. If we can make people more conscious about using them then we’ll be able to see them off.
Philip Gegan
