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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The death of the word "robust" 


From "4 Things We Hate About the Obama Oil Spill Review" we get this cranky and yet awesome little rant:

Let's just start with this: it's time to ban the word "robust" from usage as a term of action by both business and government. We can't even read the word "robust" anymore in a corporate press release or government statement without a language lie detector in our brain igniting neuron fireworks -- and we had to read the word many times in the Obama oil spill review document.

Agreed. When I see "robust" in any institutional communication, my inner Pavlov's dog smells bullshit. And that is a tragedy, for "robust" was once a fine and manly word, now ruined for us all by corporate flacks and political hacks.

I wish the professional spinners would stop spoiling good words.

4 Comments:

By Blogger Unknown, at Tue Aug 17, 12:25:00 PM:

Nefarious people will always use trusted words to promote their dark message. Face it, how far would they get if they used words with questionable connotations? It's a constant grind of good words going bad. I remember when gay meant light and lively and journalism had some respect to it.  

By Blogger Bomber Girl, at Tue Aug 17, 03:38:00 PM:

Robust post, TH. Just sayin'.  

By Blogger JPMcT, at Wed Aug 18, 03:37:00 PM:

Agreed. Let's also ban:

- Let me be perfectly clear

- At the End of the Day

- Clean energy

- Green jobs

...the list is endless.  

By Blogger Assistant Village Idiot, at Fri Aug 20, 11:35:00 PM:

It still has meaning in medicine. For now.  

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