Tommy Washbush
The word "bandwidth" recommended to be change to "capacity."
It’s time for my annual list of words and phrases that have been overused and need a rest for next year or, better yet, for all eternity. Let’s get started.
Bandwidth. This is a fancy way of saying capacity. It used to be impressive when digital stuff was new — approximately back in 1919. By saying “bandwidth” instead of “capacity” you demonstrated how hip to the jive you were with the kids and all their crazy new tech stuff. Now those kids’ kids are going to college. Bandwidth doesn’t impress anybody anymore. Bandwidth has also become a way of hinting at native intelligence. So, folks, let’s have the bandwidth to go back to a better word, like good old “capacity.”
Center (as a verb). I actually read this sentence this year: “We center radical self care in all that we do.” If you were to say instead, “We prioritize radical self care in all that we do,” you’d have a sentence that was 25% less pretentious.
Early days. As in “these are early days,” meaning some event or process is just beginning. It sounds British, which always lends class to any simple phrase. Why not just say “it’s early?”
Game changer. Let’s blame Barack Obama for this one. It probably came to prominence and overuse after Game Change, a book about the 2008 Obama campaign, came out two years later. But now things referred to as “game changers” are usually nothing of the sort. Every normal ebb and flow in politics, business, sports or life in general is immediately identified as a game changer. Games don’t really change that much, although baseball’s new pitch clock has resulted in games that are almost a half hour shorter. That is a real game that actually changed. Beyond that, we’re not really changing games all that much, so let’s stop talking as if we are.
Hard stop. People like to use this one in place of “period.” It’s meant to convey the idea that what they’ve just stated in a simple declarative sentence is so irrefutable, powerful even, that it requires no further elaboration and certainly not a defense. So why is it that nobody who says “hard stop” after making such an obvious point ever actually stops talking after saying it? Let’s end the use of this phrase. Hard stop.
It is what it is. I don’t really dislike this little bit of Zen in our lives. It’s just one of those phrases that has become a verbal tic for too many of us. And it does encourage some degree of laziness. Rather than try to suss out a problem, there’s this vaguely profound sounding phrase to fall back on. Ya know, sometimes it really isn't what it seems it is, but something else entirely.
Offline. People use this word as a polite way of saying, “That’s a stupid point and let’s not waste everybody’s time with it.” When one of your coworkers says something inane in a meeting your boss is likely to say something like, “Well, let’s discuss that later offline,” as if you were online at the moment when, in fact, you’re sitting there together in a room that isn’t virtual. And, of course, if your boss ever does address the inane comment she may well do it in an email — which is online, not off. You want to disagree with me on this? Let’s take that discussion offline.
Real time. It’s the flipside of offline, as in, “let’s discuss this in real time.” But, with apologies to Bill Maher, there’s no such thing. “Space-time” is all relative, as Einstein pointed out over a century ago. If you live on a mountaintop you age faster than if you live at sea level. So, in what sense is time real? Anyway, what’s wrong with the simple word “now?”
Room. Sports is a hotbed of awful language, so there’s a lot to choose from here. The word that has really gotten out of hand in the last couple of years is “room,” mostly used in football. There’s the quarterbacks’ room, the outside linebackers’ room, the tight ends’ room. Everybody’s got a room. I suppose it refers to the rooms in which each specialized group of players meets to go over strategy during the week of practice before a game. But instead of saying, “in the quarterbacks room,” why not just say “the quarterbacks?”
Three priorities (all the same). I have only three priorities. First, stop saying you only have three priorities and they’re all the same. Second, stop saying you only have three priorities and they’re all the same. And finally, stop saying you only have three priorities and they’re all the same.
Finally, a word about my criteria for inclusion in my annual list. It’s basically just the level of pretentiousness or deception. I hate it when somebody takes a simple idea and dresses it up in a fancy word or phrase to make themselves sound smarter than they are or, even worse, to obscure their real intent or to disguise the fact that they have no idea what they’re talking about.
In my view, writing should be three things: honest, clear and, when it can be managed, entertaining.
The political left is especially bad about this. What? You don’t know what intersectionality is? You don’t understand cisgender? Well, obviously, that’s because you’re a Eurocentric, colonialist oppressor who is a member of the patriarchy! Normal people read or hear stuff like that and get the vague sense that they’re being insulted and accused of something bad, but they have no idea what. If you’re going to call somebody bad names, it’s usually a good idea to make it clear what it is you’re calling them.
The rule should be: don’t use a fancy or obscure word when a simple, straightforward word will do. Don’t be opaque when you can be clear.
I know it’s early days, but we need to reduce our use of pretentious language and let’s not do that offline or even in real time. C’mon, we have the bandwidth for this, people, and if we centered it, it would be a game changer. Let’s not just say it is what it is. My three priorities are one, to root out puffed up phrases. Two, to root out puffed up phrases. And three? To root out puffed up phrases. That’s all I have from the writers’ room. Hard stop.
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
