IN what was a "rich year for 'manglish' and gobbledegook" Labor's catch-cry from the federal election has been voted the most annoying phrase of 2010.
“Moving forward” beat hundreds of pieces of jargon, spin and obfuscation to top The Plain English Foundation’s inaugural list ahead of others like “thought shower”, “maggoted” and “disintermediate”.
Executive director Neil James said the phrase was a narrow winner in a strong field but had to win because it showed the election had been driven “more by focus-group research than political leadership”.
“Just when we thought this business cliché had dropped from use, Julia Gillard robotically repeated the phrase more than 20 times during her announcement of the election,” Dr James said.
Do you have a nomination for 2010’s most annoying phrase or word? Leave a comment.
The Plain English Foundation was founded in 2003 to lobby for better use of public language and to provide consulting services to businesses and government.
The list includes US politician Sarah Palin’s non-word “refudiate”, which was also named 2010 Word of the year by the Oxford American Dictionary.
Ms Palin first used the “word” during a television appearance where she demanded US President Barack Obama “refudiate” claims the Tea Party movement was racist.
Dr James said he was bemused by claims made by the dictionary’s editors that it was “an unquestionable buzzword in 2010” and that it “more or less (stood) on its own”.
“I think the good people at Oxford can be a little too permissive sometimes,” he said. “It’s not a word and we wouldn’t want it to become a word.”
This is the first time The Plain English Foundation has decided to publish a list to exact “revenge” on the year’s worst language offenders.
“Our major criteria are asking: is it effective communication?” Dr James said.
“A lot of the worst-of (words) are just playing dress-ups while other are deliberately obfuscating or papering-over the truth.”
When asked to pick a personal nemesis from 2010 Dr James said BP’s efforts in creating the term “vessels of opportunity” deserved special mention.
“They were trying to spin their self-made environmental disaster,” he said. “Under the vessels of opportunity program, boat owners whose jobs were destroyed by the disaster were employed to help in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup.”
Other worst words and phrases of 2010
Great big new tax
Boring, repetitive and redundant, Tony Abbott’s slogan was the tautology of 2010.
Strategic staircase
The new business cliché that looks set to replace “forward plan”; it means a plan.
Removal pathway
A phrase first coined by Senator Christopher Evans is essentially a euphemism for deportation.
Investment in human capital
Opposition spokesperson for the status of women Sharman Stone created this when talking about Liberal’s paid parental leave scheme: “Well, we don’t call it a tax, we’re calling it an investment in human capital.” It’s a tax, but maybe not a great, big, new one.
Thought shower
Want to brainstorm some ideas? Employers in the UK now ask staff to take “thought showers” instead because “brainstorm” might be offensive to people with epilepsy.
"Ambient" sausage rolls
Deserves a mention for weirdness. Simply means the sausage rolls in question can be consumed at room temperature.
Other offenders: Flexibilize, Agonistic respect, Maggoted, Disintermediate.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/moving-fo ... 86656#ixzz1ACoPLmiU
[ 本帖最后由 floraz 于 2011-1-6 10:31 编辑 ]
评论
非常有趣
LZ，我帮你编辑一下文章后面的列出一些词汇，这样更容易读一些，希望你别介意。
评论
refudiate = refuse+repudiate?
挺不错呀
评论
refudiate 是很给力，所以也是 2010 Word of the year by the Oxford American Dictionary.
annoying 也许是因为是政客玩弄字眼的缘故。
编辑以后效果更好，谢谢。
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