In his April 4 WSJ column, Joseph Epstein defined the hackneyed word of phrase as "one characterized by its unoriginality, overuse and, not least, imprecision".
Example: "time flies". And more modern examples which abound these days:
"Awesome"
"Incredible"
"Laser-focused"
"Cool"
"Massive"
"Whatever!"
Let's examine each of these with some examples, including from Epstein's WSJ piece. Take 'awesome'. Epstein relates how he used to go to a neighborhood restaurant where each time - in response to his entrance- the waiter greeted him with "Awesome!' Then when ready to order Epstein and friends got the same "Awesome!". Uh, no Smoky. Awesome would be if Epstein and his lunch friends had entered your establishment on a flying skate board - like we beheld Marty McFly doing in the movie "Back to the Future".
Just prosaic entering and ordering a meal is not awesome, never was.
Then there is the word "incredible" which has gotten vast currency and overuse thanks to Dotard Trump who - by Epstein's account: "regularly cites people he has hired" - like Karoline Leavitt (his press secretary) - "for doing an incredible job." But Karoline has never done an "incredible" job in any of her pressers. However, if one absolutely needed to use the word it might be framing them as "incredibly cringe worthy". Ditto with Pete Hegseth's job at the Pentagon and RFK Jr.'s job at Health and Human Services.
Of course, sometimes it helps to bring people back to reality by steadying their response, say to a lecture given on cosmology - say the expansion of the universe. I recall one such lecture I gave at the Harry Bayley Observatory back in 1982 and one female attendee came up afterwards and fairly gushed:
"My God! That was incredible!"
I replied: "Not really. What would have been incredible is if I could have instantaneously cited the exact value of the Hubble constant at one particular point in the talk".
"Oh. Okay!"
"Cool" is another hackneyed term which used to be mainly predominant in the vocabulary of the young Gen Z set but now seems to have propagated beyond to older generations, including Baby Boomers. So now these elder types might use "Cool" as a generic response referring to:
- Any job just completed
- E mails finally answered and replied to,
- A new movie that's come out and seen in the cinema.
- A new Chinese dish cooked at home for the first time.
"Massive" is another grossly overused word, which has now infected almost every aspect or element of American culture, and especially sports. "Wow! That was a massive grand slam!" "That was a massive slide into third base!' "That was a massive touchdown pass from Brady!"
Oh and this choice example from Epstein:
"Massive was the Republicans defeat of the Democrats in the last election."
In fact, the election was a veritable squeaker, with Trump besting Kamala by a barely 1.5% margin. And as I noted in earlier posts, had the dummies that threw their votes away voting 3rd party, just voted for Harris - she would have won. The point? Trump didn't even get a majority (over 50%) of the total votes cast.
"Whatever!" has been the hackneyed choice of response for irritated teens since the year dot - or so it seems. Parent tells Missy to please clean up her room lest the crawly critters take over. She responds "Whatever!" The same goes for any parental lecture on why Dudley needs to stay away from Pornhub. Included in that lecture a full low down on how the sexual images can desensitize.
Dudley's reply? "Whatever!"
As Epstein properly puts it in context:
"I make an interesting point in a conversation. Instead of engaging me on the point you reply 'Whatever!' Which means in effect, case closed. Damned rude when you think about it."
Amen.
Then there is the hackneyed phrase "happens to be" which comedian George Carlin once took down with particular insight in a stand up riff. You can see it here:
"Happens to be" - George Carlin - Google Search
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