Word Games

Words in everyday use are like colds. Some attach themselves to our daily lives and we just cannot get rid of them. I read an article that came out of England awhile back that told about words that should be stricken from our down dead! They had a top 10 list. Some words we just beat to death. Initially, they remind us of a song we feel is on a par with something that came out of Mozart's head. After listening to it for a thousand times or so you hope it disappears forever. Does the Chipmunk Song or One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater, ring a bell?
For us folks over sixty or even you youngsters over fifty was there anything more irritating than "groovy". Any type of food was groovy. Church was groovy. Even toilet paper was groovy. For me, never hearing the word again would be groovy. I suspect every generation has their word or word phrases. It establishes their identity. Go back and check out the 'Roaring Twenties". The decade was a menagerie of catch words and phrases. Newspeople have given us two words I want to throw into a pot of boiling oil. How did the word 'gravitas' come to be so special? Dick Cheney had 'gravitas' but George Bush didn't.
Anybody familiar with 'vetted' before this last political go round please contact me. If vetted was torture it would be water boarding.
Right now, today, if I never hear the words awesome and amazing it'll be much too soon. I think these came out of Hollywood. My guess is it was Pamela Sue Anderson who uttered awesome first, as in, "PETA is just awesome" or "If I could act it would be awesome". The words awesome and amazing are interchangeable.
Another word series I cringed over came out of Gulf War I. Journalists and Ted Kennedy constantly reminded us that this war was going to be a quagmire for the United States. Saddam Hussein's Elite Guard had the ability to 'hunker down' and outlast the US Forces. Please be reminded that the United States had defeated Germany, Japan and Italy in the greatest conflagration of the twentieth century. Yeah, they hunkered down alright. Then they threw up their arms faster than the French did in WWI and WWII combined.
Everyone has their own wordophobia. Feel free to add to my list the ones that cause you a bad case of shingles.