The World of “Absolutely” – and Other Clichés
In the surprisingly hermetic world of Anglophone communication, original language is as rare as a horned toad in the Antarctic. Ralph Nader once observed that clichés stop people from thinking. Not only that, the cessation of original argument is reinforced by “pre-owned” expressions, either a single word such as “absolutely” or a string of easily summoned constructions such as “at the end of the day” or “give me a break” or “day one.” For example, in a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Fareed Zakaria – a Harvard-trained social commentator – uttered “at the end of the day” eight times in less than an hour, indicating that an Ivy League degree does not always protect against hackneyed phraseology. During her 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s arsenal of clichés included “day one” repeatedly. When her campaign began to implode, this and other banalities became much more frequent, her tone of voice exponentially strident. Since then, Barack Obama has used “folks” ceaselessly in an effort at bonhomie egalitarianism when he wants higher approval ratings for both his programs and his re-election odds. He has been demonstrably successful.
Others in the public eye have been just as careless. PBS Newshour’s Jim Lehrer utilized his own program to be interviewed about his moderating of presidential debates in past cycles. Lehrer, who has written several well-received and quite readable novels, detailed his experiences in a new memoir. Talking with Jeffrey Brown, Lehrer responded more than once with “Absolutely!” after being tossed softball questions designed to elicit self-affirmative encomiums. “Absolutely” permits only the briefest relief from needed reflection before speaking, but it neither ennobles the answer nor edifies the listener. Then there is a gadfly modifier, “nuanced:” – sounds very “with it,” but it is more of an adjective based on its noun origin and adds little to nothing in a sentence. An otherwise sophisticated public servant such as Gary Hart in writing a brief biography of President James Monroe employed “nuance” and “nuanced” too often for this indulgence not to be noticed. Conversely, in his short biography of Abraham Lincoln, the late George McGovern refrained from any slipshod language and produced a superb book in the same series. The sixteenth president had only a year and a half of formal education. Mr. Lincoln acquired his eloquence by steady and varied reading, and having seen cajolery with irony in his life constantly since his birth in rural Kentucky.
Avoiding clichés and triteness in casual conversation is up to the speaker, obviously, but if one doesn’t respect the language, why should what you write get published – or, one might venture, into broadcast media? In the latter, of course, it happens every day. With the Internet diffusing language as a massive, unstoppable flood, the quality is naturally very uneven. Recently, other buzz words, clichés if you like, have crept into common usage without much complaint: “transparent” and “transparency”; “going/moving forward”; “riff”; and “fun” as an adjective not to be outdone by “reference” as a verb – these have become ubiquitous in the last fifteen years or so, just as “survivor” delineated a wide span of conditions during the 1970s and since then. More voguish words – “narrative” as one example – have been part of this avalanche lately.
“Absolutely” is a convenient word, emphasizing the affirmative, despite the lack of anything being “absolute” in human experience except treachery, abandonment, and death. “Absolutely” is now pervasive in broadcast media by the well educated who should know better but are careless, even indifferent, to fresh expression, much less correct syntax. A simple “yes” would be sufficient. Another cliché or common-word construction such as “at the end of the day” is just as obnoxious. Zakaria is not alone in his verbal profligacy.
Take the adjectival concoction I mentioned earlier: “pre-owned.” It sounds less tawdry than “used” but means the same thing. One glib commentator on the air recently described a divorced person looking for a new relationship as “pre-married,” as if to mitigate the implication of a failed marriage. Then, of course, consider “pass” or its grammatical variants “passed” and “passing” – meaning the act of dying. As one who is skeptical but respectful of religious beliefs, when I think of death, the phrases “it’s over” and “end of life” come to mind. “Passing” or “passing away” suggests going to another existence, not finality as we know it. As a Woody Allen character once put it unsentimentally, “When I’m dead, I’m dead!”
I don’t use “pass” or its variants as euphemisms for the act of dying, or “impact” as a verb, or “absolutely” or “at the end of the day” or “having said that” or “riff,” or indeed “fun” as a modifier or “reference” as a verb. I cannot do so because my parents never did – and I sense viscerally that they are aware of everything I do and say. I do not want to disappoint them any more than I already have.
Language, as Eric Arthur Blair once said, is a tool but it is also an art form and can be so used – or misused. In a “free society,” the debasement, thus misuse, of language is an active danger.
James Naiden’s third novel, The Chafings of Mortals, was published in 2011. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is a regular reviewer for IS&T.