Thursday, April 28, 2011

Avoiding the Major Disaster of ineffective language






















A few weeks ago I was listening to a guest on the late-night Coast to Coast AM radio show respond to questions from listeners about his amazing new book. He never began a reply with a simple yes. Instead it was always either ABSOLUTELY or EXACTLY.

It didn’t take long for that overblown language to become a Major Disaster. He sounded like a self-righteous comic book character. I don’t think he realized he was stuck on those two words.




















In a recent article Fred Haley discussed three types of phrases and comments that you should avoid - because they are just hot air. These were:

Incredibles - “absolutely perfect”

Excusables - “I’m not really an expert, but”

Conditionals - “In my opinion” or “At this point in time”

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