Gobbledygook
In the Otago Daily Times this morning, Paul Gorman's column What's With That? was "addressing" the vexed "issue" of changes in language, specifically the use of gobbledygook and codswallop (his words). I think of it as the specific misuse or deliberate overuse of words in an attempt to sound intelligent. He had several examples in his column such as "learnings", "going forward" and "at the end of the day", all of which make one want to scream.
I'm adding a couple more which are painfully overused these days: "event" and "experience". Have you noticed that heart attacks and strokes have all but disappeared and been replaced by the ubiquitous and thoroughly infuriating "medical event". Likewise, we no longer have rain or hailstorms, we suffer "weather events".
Continuing my curmudgeonly tirade, nobody goes out for dinner any more - they now have a "dining experience" and one no longer drives a car but has a "driving experience". The same is true for "the shopping experience". And don't get me started on "at this point in time" and many hundreds more. Aaaaaarrrrrggghh.
