Dead words walking are words and expressions that are part of today's vernacular, but deserve to be on Death Row, awaiting execution. Part One consists of words heard many times a day on broadcast media. These words and phrases have been convicted; many suspects still roam the streets. If you hear one, cover your ears and call the authorities.
Walking It Back -- As in, "He ran his big mouth yesterday, and today is busy walking it back."
But once the horse slips from the stable and canters into the world, it's too late. It doesn't matter if the statement is an outright lie (which is usually the case), or an unfortunate choice of words, or just accidental blurting (which is likely to be the truth). You can lasso Dobbin and walk him back to his stall, but his tell-tale hoofprints remain in the world. Excuses and explanations may be possible--occasionally even good ones--but there is no walking back the talk. Let's stop pretending there is and turn this expression into dog food.
At the End of the Day -- This means "ultimately" or "finally" or, if you're feeling dramatic, "in the end." Not exciting words, so the first time you heard "at the end of the day," you may have found it refreshing or colorful. Then the media magpies snatched it up and flew in raucous circles. Now it's not unusual to hear it from the same talking head several times in a five-minute segment. At the end of the day, an example must be made of the next public figure to use this expression.
Thinking Outside the Box -- Some say this expression came to us from Madison Avenue admen; others insist that it comes from the cutting edge world of scientific and technological innovation. Wherever it came from, it needs to be put back in the box. Nowadays, it's used whenever a teenager is deciding whether or not to invest in a tattoo. What we really need to do is apply old, tried-and-true solutions to current problems. Current, not new problems, because human problems are never new--only their context. Here's an idea: how about thinking inside the box for awhile? We might learn something.
Sausage-Making -- "Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made." --Otto Von Bismarck. He added "Out of respect for sausages." In the Obama era, permutations of this aphorism are favored by left-wing newscritters pretending to be moderates. They use this to suggest that the strong-arming and bribery employed to ram through, say, ObamaCare, are business as usual. This is, well...baloney. Bismarck (often credited as the first big government progressive, as well as the father of the welfare state) meant that politics and legislating involved unsavory horse-trading and tit-for-tat favor swapping, but the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Axis of Ego has plumbed new depths of legislative depravity. At least for America. This expression must be ground up, encased and fed to pet Democrats.
Game Changer -- This new cliche hails (as so many do) from the sports world, where it means any big play which alters the flow and eventual outcome of a game. It's harmless and has only become offensive because everyone--everyone--in media (all of whom suffer from cutesiness and echolalia) uses it incessantly, for every petty morsel of breaking news. Let's bench it before it makes a game-changing mistake.
Orientated -- If you become oriented, you are not turning Japanese, no matter how much you think so. To become oriented is to be familiarized with new surroundings or a new situation, or to be placed in proper relationship to that which is. To be disoriented is probably to be drunk. The process of becoming oriented is called orientation. But there is no such word as "orientated." I don't care how many times you've heard it. And any hairdo who uses it should be immediately frog-marched off the set.
Tipping Point -- This has taken the place of turning point, but conveys a spicier sense of urgency and inevitability. The tipping point of a situation occurs at the same instant as the game changer. Although overused, it's colorful, and I wouldn't really mind it except for the fact that, just as we don't know what play, if any, was the game changer until the game is over, we don't really know where the tipping point was until the tipped object actually crashes to the ground. The other tipping point comes at the end of a restaurant meal, but doesn't concern us here.
Dysfunctional -- Any word entering this dimension from the realm of psychobabble is suspect--this one more than most. My chief objection to it is that it is meaningless. These days, anything that doesn't work perfectly from the perspective of everyone involved is dysfunctional. Ergo, everything's dysfunctional. Every organization, every system, every relationship--especially the family. I have a question for you: Did you survive into adulthood? If yes, then your family was functional. Not perfect, but then neither are you.
Going Forward -- This one--meaning "from now on"--was probably conceived by the same people who brought us "at the end of the day." With a key difference. While "end of the day" is abused by the full political spectrum, "going forward" is abused exclusively by progressive leftists, who favor imagery that promotes relentless forward progress down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City of Mankind. The left is moving on.org, never looking back, nor, since they're wearing blinders, side to side. They only have eyes for the finish line. And then what?
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