Whether in business, in law, at school, or on the street, people like to adopt otherwise good words for poor but popular use. The careful writer must listen for these fad words and phrases and avoid them—a task that may be difficult, as some vogue words have cemented themselves far too comfortably in our colloquial tongue. The following list, incomplete, provides a taste of common vogue words you should avoid using in their given sense:
action item: An icky corporate term that means task, job, chore, etc. Sometimes used to give something greater importance, in which case it’s best to just say which project requires immediate attention.
age-appropriate: Is an age-appropriate children’s film one that doesn’t curse or show violence or one whose language, characters, and humor befit a child—and what kind of child at that? Cut this vague term from use.
ask: A perfectly good verb that, for some reason, replaces the noun question in corporate speak. Always prefer What is the question or What is the point to What is the ask.
artisan / -al: Used to indicate authenticity or hand-made quality; misused often for non-artisanal goods. Similar vapid terms include high-quality and homemade. Use only when referring to skilled crafts and their products.
benefits: Often used to indicate meaningless alternatives to pay and vacation. Popularized in the tech startup community to incentivize employees to spend more time in the office.
bottom line: Means point or purpose. Prefer The point is, we need to sell more products to The bottom line is, we need to sell more products.
brave: Once reserved for acts of heroic or sacrificial courage, brave now seems equally applicable to YouTubers taking a brief sabbatical from their lucrative channels. If you must use it, use it for those deserving of the title, otherwise you will sound like a melodramatic schmuck.
constructive criticism: Prefixing a noun with constructive indicates a wimpy sensitivity to that noun. Prefer response to constructive feedback.
dialogue: A noun that refers to planned discourse between characters in books, plays, movies, etc. It is often misused as a verb (and sometimes a noun) to replace talk, converse, or discuss. No matter how interesting the topic of your conversation, it is still a conversation. Do not say I was in dialogue with my adviser for I talked with my adviser. We revise dialogue; we cannot revise a discussion.
downsize: Misused for shrink or make smaller.
empower: Misused for encourage, excite, or invigorate. Used correctly, empower means to give authority or power to someone. Prefer I’m driven to write this email to I’m empowered to write this email.
escalate: Means to intensify, though often used as a verb to mean to communicate to higher authority. Prefer We must take this to the boss to We must escalate this to the boss.
feature: Often used in place of clearer, more exact nouns, generally in the entertainment industry but also in corporate settings. Prefer The latest performance to The latest feature.
impact: A noun unless discussing teeth, though often misused as a redundant synonym for affect, influence, alter, or change. Prefer The performance changed my thinking to The performance impacted my thinking.
inappropriate: Like problematic, inappropriate passes a judgement of opinion free from personal responsibility and with the air of assumed authority. Rather than indicating specific discomfort, inappropriate makes a judicial ruling with which others are uninvited to debate. An inappropriate book has been deemed wholly wrong, though we cannot quickly say what might be wrong with it and for whom it is inappropriate—does the speaker simply dislike the book because it includes cultures that push against the speaker’s fragile beliefs, or is the book vulgar, racy, violent, etc.? Kill this word in your writing and conversation and replace it with specific, clear language. You may not want your audience to debate your opinion, but your opinion is never immune to debate.
input: Misused for opinion. Prefer Give me your opinion to Give me your input.
interface: Like dialogue, this vogue word means to talk, discuss, or otherwise communicate with someone (often through technology).
meaningful: A meaningless word. Often used when a speaker wants to emphasize emotional connection without spending the time to determine what that emotional connection is (or if it is really there). A meaningful conversation is, in truth, little more than an unadorned conversation. Everyone wants the hour-long meeting to be meaningful, but it rarely is.
parameter: Unless referring to computer programming, use variable, limit, or boundary.
point in time: A waste of space that usually means now. Prefer Now we must fight to At this point in time we must fight.
proactive: Often meaningless and should be cut, though sometimes means active or aware. Prefer We must prepare for the attack to We must take a proactive approach to the attack.
problematic: A vague, imperesonal, and dangerous word used to pass opinion under the guise of a well-established judgement. This word tends to appear in anti-intellectual contexts where critical curiosity is unwelcome. If you feel compelled to use the word, you must immediately define whatever it is you have called problematic. Be not the lazy writer who relies on vague language to pass claims bearing little prior research or thought.
state-of-the-art: Often means anything but state-of-the-art and should thus be cut. Use new or modern if necessary.
synergy: A buzzword for cooperation.
worst-case scenario: Replace the phrase with whatever that worst-case scenario is: death, arrest, bankruptcy, etc. Without the prefix, scenario is also a vogue word best replaced by event. Prefer Failure will get us arrested to Failure will lead to the worst-case scenario.