John Rentaul continues to collect “overused meaningless and offensive words and phrases.” In his book he often admits that he was himself guilty of using some of the words he cites. The book covers nearly every word and phrase that I have found to be ridiculously abused. I can only think of two words used as intensifiers that are not included, although certainly have been reported to him since 2011. I once had a required class for an employer in which the instructor asked for examples of possible work situations that could apply to the topic discussed. Whenever someone would give an answer she approved, she would say “absolutely,” and look around the room pleased with herself. It was all I could do to not walk out of the class or to ask the instructor to please learn some new intensifiers. "Absolutely" is only useful as an adverb in a sentence. I talked to an insurance agent by telephone. Every time I gave an answer to one of his questions about myself, he gave me a “perfect.’ I asked him why everything was perfect, and when the answer I gave clearly did not reflect a perfect situation, I said, “not really.” Before we hung up, I told him to learn some new adjectives. One wonders if recorded evidence of their cliches would get many people to strive to improve their speech.
Rentoul gave me further reinforcement for the wrongness of using verbs as nouns. Although used multiple times by reviewers in this very platform, I have always detested "read" used to mean a book or an article or a poem or letter. . .
Some of the things on the author's list I had not thought of as overused or unnecessary, but when he pointed them out, I readily agreed. One such is "prior to" for before. Why be wordy when you don't have to be?
This is the type of book I have thought of writing myself. I couldn't think how to go about it. I'm very glad that Rentoul has done it. He has come up with countless examples that I couldn't have managed to. I will keep the book on hand and refer to it to refresh my memory and to improve my speaking and writing.
One thing the author fails to include or mention that I certainly would, and consider the worst form of cliche is the profanity that gives its users the appearance of having every bit of a third grade education.
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