Annoying Communication

A couple of weeks ago, Lake Superior State University released its 37th annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse, and General Uselessness.” Those conducting the study asked participants to nominate terms they consider tired, overused, or annoying. From those submissions they created the list of twelve terms that they recommend not to use in 2012.

The terms are amazing, baby bump, shared sacrifice, occupy, blowback, man cave, ginormous, the new normal, win the future, trickeration, pet parent, and thank you in advance.

After the events of last year, some of these terms have new meaning. Some of them are new creations. Some have been around a while but, due to overuse last year, have become annoying.

At least one of them, amazing, is a term that has been in our vocabulary for a long time. Interestingly, it received the most nominations, 1500. Why is amazing an annoying word?

It is overused.

Notice people’s speech. Listen to commercials. Watch articles and ads in print. Everything is amazing. Sometimes an exclamation point follows the word in print. When spoken, the voice inflection raises and perhaps gets louder. These are done to put additional emphasis on the word amazing.

In fact, that is usually the reason amazing is used. Amazing is intended to emphasize and bring attention. Often, it is a one word response to communicate surprise and be complimentary. Unfortunately, its overuse has led to annoyance. This annoyance makes it a useless word.

As a useless word, amazing has lost effectiveness. It no longer conveys the communication which the sender intends. As such, amazing has joined other words that are overused and, therefore, ineffective. Those words include quality, selection, and value.

The problem with all overused words is the sender’s lack of specificity. Rather than saying specifically what about something is amazing, the person uses the general term amazing. This generality annoys the receiver because it tells the receiver nothing. So you think something is amazing! What does that mean?

A much less annoying, much more informative communication gives the receiver something new. For example, instead of an amazing washing machine say a washing machine that washes a twenty pound load. Instead of an amazing movie say a movie that pulled me into the story. Instead of an amazing experience say an experience that scared me and made me laugh at the same time.

Instead of “That’s amazing!” say specifically what you find amazing.

When you are tempted to use an overused, misused, and annoying word, stop. Think specifically why you want to use that word. Then, communicate your “why” instead of using the general, overused word.

Your communication will be much clearer and not annoying.