Coming up on Word Matters, the overused phrases we were formerly told to avoid.
I'm Emily Brewster,
and Word Matters is produced by Merriam-Webster in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Amin Shea, Peter Sakalowski,
and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
Writing advice often includes hackneyed phrases we're supposed to avoid.
This is not new, as Amon explains.
One of the things that anybody who is learning writing technique or has tried learning how to write or is writing with any editorial oversight hears is that there are certain words and phrases particularly that one should avoid
because they are so overused as to have become cliches.
We call them hack-need phrases.
And I think we all carry around a list of these things that we feel like, oh yeah,
people always say that and it's just kind of boring things like at the end of the day or kick the can down the road or take this to the next level.
Do either of you have phrases that you feel like you try to avoid based on overuse?
I don't really like the take it to the next level.
I think that one's one that I probably try to avoid in general.
I think I probably avoid as many as I can.
There's one that I particularly hate, which is all that jazz.
I just don't like it.
But the fact is the language is full of them.
And some of them are distracting because they're sort of isolatable as a little cliche,