“These Words Are So Overused They’ve Become Meaningless”

by Joanne von Spanien

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/09/these-words-are-so-overus_n_5447356.html (it’s short. Basically the thesis is that words like literally. honestly, absolutely, etc. used to mean something and now are forever ruined.)
Okay, I hate shit like this. Why? Because all languages have filler words and, guess what, these words change over time and, guess what, if you’re, say, writing dialogue, using them to some extent is essential to recreating the way people actually talk.
 
Would you want to just toss them around in terse prose? Well, no. BUT…
 
Also, to everyone who gripes about shit like “If I was” or “the winner was me” why don’t I just give you an Anglo-Saxon dictionary. You can grind up the pages and snort them.
 
People get their p***ies in a twist over this stuff, but there are SO MANY linguistic changes happening right under our noses (cot, caught. Do they sound the same when you say them?) that no one f***ing notices. It’s when these colloquialisms filter into conservative writing styles that idiot editors, who don’t even know what the Germanic umlaut (it’s not this: ü, ä, ö) or a pitch accent is, apparently become linguistic experts.
 
</end rant>