Yesterday Jean alluded to the (mis-)use of epidemic and pandemic as synonyms. Then a rant on my part.
My biggest pet peeve is the word "concerning" -- its passage from preposition to adjective -- how people find things concerning. I believe the word we are searching for is disconcerting. Another is the rampant use of ostensibly amongst uptalking socialites (always in the adverb form, never the adjective ostensible). I'm with Gertrude Stein on adverbs.
Finally, the use of obviously, as practiced by hockey players when responding to interview questions. "Obviously, it's a big game for us. But yeah, it's huge." Usage here is based on the performatively modest athlete who does not want to sound condescending (telling us something we already know -- or should know), while at the same time is passive-aggressively contemptuous of a media who are only adding value to a game that allows these athletes their excellent living.
I could go on, I won't go on, to paraphrase (through inversion) the ever-precise, ever-fascinating Samuel Beckett.
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