Somehow everything's become a "need". There are no longer any imperatives in life. It's not that we "must" do something, nothing is "required" of us, instead everyone tells us we "need" to do things.
When filing a complaint with the police about my neighbor's dog's incessant barking the clerk handed me a form and instead of saying, "Fill this out, please." said, "You need to fill this out." I couldn't stop myself from saying, "It may be a requirement that I do so, but I assure that in the doing I will not be fulfilled in any way, so therefore I don't
need to do it.", and of course got a blank look from her in return.
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Instant verbs. Someone is said to "reference" something rather than "refer to" it; actors and actresses no longer "perform a cameo" or have a cameo role, they are now said to have "cameod"; when two people who are normally single acts perform a song together they are now said to have "dueted" rather than sung a duet (thankfully I haven't read or heard of anyone "trioing").
And for the last farging time, "disrespect" is
not a verb!
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Referring (nudge, nudge) to second example above: Misusing or refusing to use words in an attempt to be "non-sexist" or "non-gender-specific", as in calling women who perform on stage or screen as "actors", or even worse, "female actors". Gender-specific words denote difference, not superiority or inferiority.
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The needless personalization of things.
The sales clerk who hands you your credit card slip and says, "Will you sign this for me?", or points to the card reader and says "Put in your PIN number for me." I'm not doing it for you, I'm doing it because it's part of the transaction.
At a local high school track and field meet I heard the P.A. announcer repeatedly say, "I need all participants in (event) to report to the scorer's tent." You do? If they don't will you be unfulfilled? Say rather, "All contestants in (event) please report to the scorer's tent." (As an aside, note that the announcer said "participants" while I used the proper "contestants". If they were just "participants" then no one would bother keeping track of who won.)
I could go on but it's late.
P.S. PIN number, VIN number, ATM machine.
Help stamp out and abolish redundancy!