the daily telegraph has produced a new book: "she literally exploded: the daily telegraph infuriating phrase book", and plugged it today in this article. it seems to be a pocket-sized version of something like the urban dictionary, but is certainly of interest to pedants like the ravaj.
examples aside, here is my favourite paragraph from the article:
"It is poverty of thought and expression that make for infuriating phrases. There are comfortably more than 500,000 words in the English language, many more than are available in French or German. They allow us to be specific in every situation, and to be playful, alliterative, allusive - all sorts of things that repetitive use of phrases such as "I'm like, whatever" doesn't allow. If people use four words where one would do, they're wasting your time. If corporate lackeys use jargon to obfuscate or euphemism to obscure, then anger is the right - or as they'd say "appropriate" - response."
'obfuscate' - what a brilliant word?!
go. look. enjoy.
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