Thursday, February 14, 2013

Words that Ire

I find some words or phrases irritating - and sometimes I don't even know why.  In the recent past it was the phrase "reach out" - as in "reach out to Accounting and see if they have processed the payment".  Why use more words than necessary?  Isn't it more direct to say "Call Accounting....."?  I cringed every time someone said "reach out...."  Then came the word "chipolte"  I don't like it.  It doesn't sound right to me.  Is it a real word?  I believe some marketing "genius" just made it up one day and now it's everywhere.  It seems to be trending.

And that brings me to my current irritating word - "trending".  The irritation factor is magnified by the fact that the word itself is trending and the cause of the word - social media - is also trending.   It is all a big stupid fad.

Bangs are trending, Air Jordons are trending (or was that last decade?), skinny jeans are trending (last week?), the Kardashians are trending- fads fads fads.  I've never been impressed with keeping up with the Jones' - or the Kardashian's.   Fads come and go all the time - you might be cool now with those Michelle Obama bangs but next week you are gonna need a beehive or you are so uncool.  Spare me (a trending phrase from not long ago).

Sure - I like to be "in style" as much as possible on my very tight budget - but I'd rather buy something based on it's usefulness, it's quality or it's cost / feature ratio.  I don't buy what is trending.  But the word trending does mean something to marketers.  In fact they rely on what is currently trending to make the big sales. Trending equals dollars.

So now I've said the stupid word a lot in perfectly reasonable context.  Does it bother you?  It still bothers me.  Why?  Because it is the same as another perfectly good word that didn't need to be replaced.  That word is "popular".  Go back and read the last 2 paragraphs using the word popular instead of trending.  Same difference.  Apparently "popular" is no longer trending. 


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a twitter account but only have it because I wanted to see what the big deal was. I rarely open it up so it's trending downward in my life.

And facebook is just making me more angry by the day. I have removed most of the conservative 'friends' from my feed and am much happier for it.

Did you see where Facebook was bragging about getting a 400 million dollar 'tax refund' after not paying a dime in Federal or State taxes? WTF? I read that yesterday and it almost made me disable my facebook account. (I only keep it for my Mother's sake). THAT is what is wrong with our tax laws. These huge corporations have loopholes that allow them to claim a refund even when they don't pay any taxes of any kind. THAT needs to be changed.

Cheers Denbec.
Lisa in Tucson

denbec said...

I opened a Twitter account just prior to my cross country bicycle trip - and that was just to keep my family and friends informed of my progress. Since then I've never used it again. I think it is - in most cases - a silly application and a total fad. Facebook I do find useful but I believe it is also a fad. You wouldn't think such handy communication tools would be fads - but I lived through the CB Radio era (my handle was Jolly Joe - lol). How many people use CB Radios anymore? Keeping in close contact always seems like a good idea - but soon most people realize they are missing their own lives.

As for the taxes - that is a HUGE problem with this country. I truly believe that if all corporations paid their fair share then we wouldn't have a deficit problem to begin with. Individual middle class tax payers always have to pay our fair share but corporations skip out on billions of needed tax revenue. All those loopholes need to be closed!