John Woolfrey writes from Canada:

Dear Mr Mangan,
I came across your site in this morning’s Montreal Gazette (Andy Riga’s column). I was immediately relieved to see that others are as appalled at newspapers’ overuse of certain words and puerile puns.

The said Gazette is guilty of both. In fact, the article just next to Riga’s in a story entitled “Elections Canada making list, checking twice.” I don’t know what happened at the Gazoo — it only starting getting really bad a couple of years ago.

I used to work for a weekly “alternative” paper as copy editor. Assignment editors there were constantly reaching for bad puns in their headlines. At least they had the excuse of their youth.

As for my pet overused word, I was surprised not to find them on your list!

Soar (“the dollar soared 0.5 cents”)

Skyrocket (“the dollar skyrocketed 0.5 cents”)

Plummet (“the dollar plummeted 0.5 cents”) It doesn’t matter how much the value of the dollar rose or fell (against the US dollar), the Gazette ALWAYS uses on of these three words. It uses it for pretty well any figure that increases or decreases.

I would dearly love to challenge all newspapers to publish for just one day without using these words.

Glad to see “literally” on the banned list. I allowed in on that paper only when appropriate, which happened in about one in a thousand instances in which writers were trying to use it. My fave was “Christmas is literally just around the corner.” I looked but couldn’t see it, so I deleted it from the copy.

My other two are one I came across in Toronto’s Globe & Mail: “Montreal is
literally sinking.” That worried me, as I live quite near the river. Then there
were the two I heard on the radio: “My blood was literally boiling.” (ouch!)
and “we worked literally around the clock.” (in my minds eye the clock is a
huge half-sphere set on the floor with the face on top in the cross-section,
around which they all toiled.)

Oh, how could I forget “ironically“! My young Hour colleagues found everything ironic, using it innapropriately as an adverb. I told them to chill.

Jeremy Wagstaff contributes:

“Fighting for his/her political life”

I really hate it, though I can’t put a finger on why. I guess it just seems so irritating that journalists might be so convinced of the importance of their beat to compare negotiating a speedbump in one’s political career with someone on life-support.

David Giffels of the Akron Beacon Journal wonders:

How many more “slain” gunmen must we endure before headline writers exit the middle ages? Knights “slay” dragons. Modern killers simply kill. (“Senselessly.” But that’s an issue for another day.)

Bruce the Sanity Inspector would ban:

Stories which bemoan the fact that there are “no easy answers“. Well, if there was an easy answer, I wouldn’t be reading about the subject in the newspaper, now would I?

I see that Jennifer Grieco beat me to abominating the lazy “center around“. The only situation I’ve ever known where it is physically possible for something to center around something, is an lp on a phonograph spindle.

Howard Glazer, copy editor with the Record-Journal in Meriden,
Conn., shares this irksome occurrence:

My nominee is the tired lede “What a difference a day (week, month, year, epoch) makes.” It fits just about anything one covers as news, as long as something has changed, from City Council meetings (MERIDEN — What a
difference a day makes. An ordinance banning parking downtown was passed Monday, etc.) to historical events. (HIROSHIMA, Japan — What a difference a day makes. An atomic bomb devastated, etc.). Why anyone would think this a clever way to start a story is beyond me, but we still encounter it, here and in the pages of other papers, regularly.

Fred Zinkhofer says:

“Scary” has got to go. “Scary” as in everything any right-winger ever does is “scary.”

Hal Davis of the Dayton Daily News shares:

I once worked with someone at UPI who loved cliches. He once changed my reference to a Turks playing “oud-like kaftas” (I probably should’ve said “a cousin to the guitar”) and made it “native instruments.”

His dream lede would have been a rock- and bottle-throwing mob attacking a Democratic presidential hopeful on a war-torn island nation.

Michelle DeMello nominates:

“Need to take ownership…”

Hi Tom,

The number one overused word today (at least in terms of politics) is “resolve.” I’d appreciate a mention of this nauseating term at your earliest convenience. Thanks.

T.E.

Tom:

I cannot tolerate the use of the word “opined.” This generally appears in the news, E.G: “I imagine I’m stupid,” he opined.

Larry