Words I Hate by Curmudgeonly Kip

Over-used scholarly words that I hate:

Robust

Rigour

Thick

However

Evocative

Gushy words used to describe serious work that I hate:

Amazing!

Fantastic!

Awesome!

Epic!

Made-up touchy-feely words that I hate:

Mindfulness

Embodiedness

Indepthness (Just saw this one in a title!)

[I once gave some Phenomenology Zealots a list of 2874 pre-existing perfectly fine words ending in –ness. They couldn’t be bothered.]

Some examples of usage of the words that I hate (totally made up):

“This report contains thick description”. 

Means: “There was so much data that I didn’t’ know what to do with it”.

“The project took a rigourous and robust approach”.

Means: “We couldn’t think of anything specific to describe our method”.

“However, the moon is made of cheese”.

Question: However, what? Where are we? What preceded this grand theory? Can you really bounce a meatball?

“Her statement was evocative of other states of mind as well”.

Means: “The interviewee really confused me, but I probably wasn’t listening”.

 

Words that I like:

Steadfastness

Substantiate

Précis

Nonetheless (as a salve for ‘However’)

Provocative