Who says that a new school year means new resolutions? What if we chose this year to practice our way of expressing ourselves? By replacing, for example, some fashionable expressions with others. Because by being used, they are emptied of their meaning and become invasive clichés. Especially since most of them are incomplete. Here are some of them, which the editorial staff suggests to forget… definitely.
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● “Don’t worry.”
“Can you get me some coffee?” – “No problem!”. “Will you do me this favor?” – “Okay, no problem.”. The resolution is particularly annoying. The first reason is that he is a hypocrite, says journalist Quentin Perrinel 100 phrases to avoid in the office and elsewhere (Editions du Figaro, 2018) It is used to evacuate any form of discussion “worry” in question. The word for the French Academy, derived from Latin mediate, “to torment, to worry”, means a problem, but from an affective, psychological point of view. It is produced a “problem” which dominates, dominates, but without which we cannot do anything.
● “How durable he is!”
Drum roll. It “endurance” he has good days ahead. During the health crisis spread by Emmanuel Macron (“endurance” even gave “courtesy»), we hear it absolutely everywhere. So much so that this rather elegant term borrowed from English flexibility , ends up seriously warming our ears. Now endowed with precious connotations, we no longer really know what it means “endurance”. Having become the most popular, terribly fashionable, it has cast a pall over many other adjectives that make up the French language.
● “He is so disruptive.”
Moreover, it is Emmanuel Macron, who, how? “durable”, mainstreamed “disruptor”, especially in start-ups. Everything that is described in this way today is necessarily incredible, original, powerful, unprecedented… but also unbearable for those who hear it so often. Adjective, a scientific derivative of Latin disturbance , “break, explode”even gave the verb “disrupt”missing from dictionaries… Please, let’s use this word sparingly and be careful not to say anything and everything under the pretense of being cool.
● “Finally I gave up”
“In the end I left without him” – “I finally changed my mind”. Built in English “finally”, the formula has been spreading like wildfire for a long time without justifying anything, academics say. Forget this ugly phrase, grammatically flawed and dangerous to mental health. And let’s remember that “at the end”, “finish”, “at the end” Where? “finally” in our language there is still…
● “At”
“Do you have anything to say in terms of content?”. Let’s admit it, we all have already used this formula. But let’s remember that it means. “At the same height, on the same line”… and nothing else. As Françoise Claustre writes Good writing is possible. (Ellipses, 2022), we cannot tell “level” instead of “What about the content?”. There are also synonymous formulas such as: in “questions”, “about”, “from the point of view”or “that which concerns”. Let’s not forget them!
Source: Le Figaro
