“Irony” has been a word I hated for a long time, but it’s almost TOO BIG now to blog about. The problems with this word are almost too egregious and too numerous to do justice to it. Nonetheless, it screams out for an entry here, if only to put me on record as anti-irony.
Certainly, we [...]
Words I Hate
Category Archives: Adjectives
Meta
People, listen up and listen good. “Meta” is not an adjective. It is a prefix which can take one of two meanings:
connected with a change of position or state
metamorphosis
metabolism
higher; beyond
metaphysics
metalanguage
But now some people have decided it would be a good idea to take this PREFIX and turn it into its own WORD, because apparently “arcane” [...]
Morose
I think I’ve hated morose longer than any word I can remember hating.
It’s likely I first got acquainted with it while studying for the SATs in high school, but I’m sure I hated it even before I heard it. But it took me until just today to realize why I hate it.
Normally I like words [...]
Remiss
Remiss is a needy needy word, at least in modern spoken English. I’m sure at some point years ago people actually used “remiss” on its own, actually using it to describe a state of carelessness or negligence. In fact, this definition lives on in its very useful offspring, remission.
But today, people do not say “remiss” [...]
Sanguine
This word does not deserve to exist. In the US, everyone learns it when studying for the SATs. It has no other usefulness in our language than tripping up vacuous high school juniors. And that’s a pretty shitty life for any word.
The problem with this word is that it sounds nothing like its meaning. Here’s [...]
Necessary
I am quite serious when I say no other word in the English language gives me so much trouble for spelling. I hope I am not the only idiot who cannot fucking spell this word. And it’s not like this is “wankel-rotary engine” (which I confess I probably use MORE), this is NECESSARY. The word [...]