GODDAMNIT: Stop Using Pointless Vocabulary

To explain why you shouldn’t use unnecessarily flowery language in everyday conversation for the sole purpose of sounding like some sort of eloquent quasi-intellectual would be pretty much pointless: everybody knows why you shouldn’t. More often than not, trying to sound smart doesn’t actually make you sound smart, so much as it makes you seem like a clever dick whom other people subsequently want to cause a great deal of physical harm to.

Instead of spending the entire article bitching about how irritating it is when people like me use meaningless, pretentious grammar on an everyday basis, I thought it’d be more useful to point out a few specific words and phrases which I personally abuse far more frequently than I should.

“Irregardless”

There is NO GODDAMNED REASON for the letters “ir” to be at the beginning of the word “irregardless.” Not unlike “flammable” and “inflammable,” the first two letters, while they should by all accounts change the root word into its antonym, has absolutely no effect on the actual definition.

“Regardless” and “irregardless” mean exactly the same fucking thing – anyone who uses “irregardless” has such a tremendous lack of respect for anyone within earshot that he assumes others judge intelligence based solely on syllable count.

“May or may not”

As in, “I may or may not be the biggest genius on the planet.” This phrase sounds really good, until you take roughly two seconds to actually think about it what the hell it means. “May or may not?” Everything “may or may not” be something. The sky may or may not be blue. My dog may or may not have eight heads and spit fire. I may or may not be a cucumber. The words are completely meaningless.

There’s literally no reason whatsoever to use the phrase “may or may not,” unless you’re trying to sound like a clever dick by elongating the length of your sentence. “This may or may not be one of the dumber things I’ve ever done” sounds minutely more eloquent than “This is a really stupid fucking idea,” so pretentious people will choose the former over the latter every single time.

“Apocryphal”

I had an English professor who once, when introducing an anecdote, used the phrase, “Now, this may be apocryphal – that is to say, untrue – but…(etc).” Now, if she had to take the time to explain what the word apocryphal meant, then why the hell did she use it in the first place? Why not just say “untrue?” The answer is simple – she wanted to sound needlessly eloquent, first in using the flowery word and then in quickly explaining its meaning to the rest of the class.

Now, I’ve got no problem whatsoever with using flowery, eloquent dialogue whenever necessary, but if you’re going to use a word like “apocryphal” just so you can then take another few seconds to explain what it means, then you’re not talking – you’re verbally masturbating.

“One”

As in, “one might say…” or “one would think…”, the phrase “one” is typically used to either avoid the second-person point of view (“you”), or to provide a quick and easy way of avoiding gender-specific pronouns without resorting to the frequently used, but still technically grammatically incorrect, “they.” And because, with good reason, nobody wants to use “his or her” (it’s too goddamn long and overly-PC).

Still, “one” reeks of unnecessary condescension, as if the speaker is referring to some imaginary group of people who exist solely for the purposes of his anecdote. You could just as easily say, “some might say” or “you’d think” in regular conversation. It’s hard to blame people for using “one” too often, though, as it is grammatically correct, and more or less necessary in formal essay writing. The tricky part involves turning the “one”-using part of your brain off once you’re out of class. 

“It’s a double-edged sword”

I don’t actually find this cliché particularly irritating, but mentioning it gives me an excuse to post this Louis CK clip, which may very well consist of the most hilariously offensive ten and a half minutes in stand-up history.

“May very well”

I used this one in the previous paragraph, which is probably why reading it feels like such an exercise in endurance. It serves to nicely de-hyperbolize whatever it is you’re about to say, but it also reeks of pretentiousness; it’s hard to imagine someone using a phrase like “may very well” without picturing them with their arms outstretched in front of them, palms facing outward, and one or both eyebrows raised. Also, they might be smoking a pipe.

“De-hyperbolize”
I’m going to have to stop writing soon, because otherwise I’ll get stuck in an infinite regression.

“Infinite regression”

Ahem.

Anyway, most all of the above words and phrases are pointless, needlessly flowery, or just plain stupid. It is not only with an infinite hatred for pretentious, condescending douchebags the world over that I suggest the following, but also with a significant desire for self-improvement:

STOP USING POINTLESS GODDAMN VOCABULARY.