farmdoc's blog post number 616

I’ve read Don Watson’s books Death Sentence and Weasel Words. Which maybe doesn’t tell you much, but it does tell you I’ve more than a passing interest in words. Which stands to reason, as I earn my living writing medical reports composed of nothing more than words. So I’m a keen observer of new words and phrases. And of old words and phrases with new meanings. Enter Caroline Baum (pictured). She’s a New York-based columnist for Bloomberg News Service. (Arguably she’s most famous for mentioning Sarah Palin’s tits on US national television; but that’s another story.) I write of Baum today because of this article in yesterday’s Age. It moves from Baum musing about end-of-year lists, to her list of six top ‘trite, overused words and phrases’. They’re all in the category of old words and phrases with new meanings. And as a list aficionado, I reckon Baum’s list’s a fairly accurate one. But I do criticise her for her two adjacent adjectives ‘trite, overused’ – because my dictionary defines ‘trite’ as ‘repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse’, and so only one of these adjectives is essential (and the other one is gratuitous). However I really appreciate the reference to one of my all-time favourite movie characters – ‘Chauncey Gardiner, the child-like sage in Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There’. Finally, please forgive me for this non ‘List Friday’ post about a list. It’s nearly the end of 2009. And I just couldn’t help myself.