I listen to a lot of podcasts and read many books, articles & essays. As a fan of grammar, etymology and words, I often focus on the way people use language to argue points. There are some writers & podcasters who challenge me both intellectually and linguistically – Nick Gillespie, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Sam Harris are all on this list.
On the other hand, there are many podcast hosts, guests and writers who do not make my list for their linguistic abilities. I still enjoy enjoy their work because it is creative, entertaining, funny or intellectually stimulating, but I find their verbal tics grating.
Here are a few things I’ve noticed in recent years:
- With all due respect… always precedes a dismissal of the target person’s opinion, position and expertise.
- Umm as a space filler had been replaced by like which itself has been replaced by ending sentences with Right?
- Right? at the end of a sentence is now being replaced with If That Makes Sense
- Too many journalists use scores to denote an arbitrary quantity. I suspect that most of these journalists do not know the quantity of a score, nor do their listeners/readers.
- There’s significant “jumping on the bandwagon” jargon over used like: the Overton window, able to hold two thoughts at the same time, narcissist, fascist, wokester, etc.
I guess that language usage trends in ways that are similar to music, fashion, and pop culture. I’ve observed this personally with slang word usage over time. Like many other oldsters, I still use the slang I grew up using vs. adopting the slang of today’s youth.
With all due respect for today’s journalists and podcasters, you might want to spend some time studying Presentation Zen and hiring a speaking coach. It would make a world of difference, if that makes sense.
