These words have been in our everyday language for a long time, but their meanings have evolved. They have been enriched with new meanings, but at the same time they have left other terms, reducing their scope and usage. The editorial team researched these common terms that make other words disappear from our linguistic habits and empty them of their meaning.
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Manage an exam, manage someone, manage a file, manage this difficulty… the verb “manage” is used in all sauces. Looking at its etymology, we see that it originally meant “carry, carry something”, and then got the meaning of “to manage, to perform”. Today it is so important that it replaces other, sometimes more accurate words. no overcomesAren’t we the test rather than managing it? Not a folder is managed Where? finished ? And you should manage instead of an exam achieve success ? The frequent and exaggerated use of the word “manage” tends to obliterate certain verbs such as “execute,” “overcome,” “succeed.”
The verb “restore” is also emptied of its meaning. CNRTL notes that “to recover” comes from the Latin “restorewhich gave rise to the French “restore” (meaning “to come into possession”). It is now used everywhere. Academician and literary historian Mark Fumaroli wrote:we no longer pick up our children from school, we do. We no longer pick up a shipwreck, we restore it. We will no longer find the highway, but restore it“before adding “men, animals, and things alike are taken up with the same rake, which replaces a whole rich vocabulary“.
50 shades of synonyms
The word “fear” is also often misused. Used to describe harmless anxiety (“I’m afraid of missing my bus”), as well as to describe panic (for example, “fear of the dark”) or anxiety (“fear of abandonment”), “fear” combines: fear, anxiety, panic and horror in our language practice today. Don’t these words depict very different sensations? Likewise, past participles are not spared. Doesn’t ‘shared’ itself tend to replace ‘distributed’, ‘divided’, ‘mixed’? And does the particle “dedicated” eliminate “assigned” (for example, to a certain service of the company), “dedicated” (to a certain area), but also “stored”, “designed” or “suitable”?
Common nouns in turn reduce our vocabulary. Some examples: The etymology of “possibility” comes from the Latin “possibilitiesor “favorable condition”. “Opportunity,” as Littre explains, originally referred to a moment in life, an episode that would bring someone happiness, sentimental or material wealth. As in any living language, word meaning has evolved naturally. It now has a broader meaning meaning ‘opportunity to be used’, but unfortunately the word alone often replaces the terms ‘opportunity’, ‘sales’, ‘offer’ or even ‘commercial opportunity’. The list is not exhaustive. Think of the terms “structure”, “product” or even “quiet”… The language is rich in its nuances. Why not use them?
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Source: Le Figaro
