When did the words "kind of,"
"sort of" and "slightly" creep into our vocabularies? These
are meaningless terms and they detract from our writing. This also seems to be
a class phenomenon in that the more educated someone is, the more likely they
seem to be to put these disqualifying modifiers in front of their perfectly
good nouns.
For example, I have noticed the "kind
of/sort of" talk on CBC radio in Canada, BBC TV in Britain, NPR in the US,
and on the podcast Pod Save America. These are otherwise well-spoken people who
say things like, "I was slightly mortified" or "It was kind of wonderful."
No, no, no. You are either mortified or you are not. Period; end of story. It
was wonderful or it wasn't, and if it wasn't that great, then it was so-so.
Be aware of using these meaningless terms
in your speech and in your writing. The latter will sound much more clear and
concise without them.
No comments:
Post a Comment