Words/Phrases to Retire (2025 Edition)

[Lori Patton]

I’d suggest you might want to take another look at your searches if you concluded from them that PIRA was a regime. Or indeed that the fate of people who were disappeared in Northern Ireland was in any way described as if it was a ‘magic trick’. Obviously that happened before 9/11 but there were things going on and reported on widely internationally before that date as well as since. The Pinochet regime was really not just something that happened in isolation in the third world.

I’m not surprised you’ve not heard the term given it originates outside the USA.

But I expect anyway that if you asked the people who are using the term they would say they haven’t made a grammatical error but have been perfectly conscious of their use of language to draw a comparison for those who would either understand it or seek to.

In terms of educating the public about that I’d suggest most places in the world might be better if the public took on more accountability for educating themselves. In any case what’s happening in the US in this case appears more alarming in practice than the simple issue of the words being used to describe it.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on this topic. I didn't research what happened in Northern Ireland, but only how the word "disappear" has been used to describe people seized for political reasons. In my opinion, when a local news station is reporting what is happening in its own city, the events should be stated as clearly as possible in language that can't be misconstrued, especially when it concerns something as important as people being taken from the streets. The Supreme Court has just lifted a restraining order that had temporarily curtailed the raids here in Los Angeles so unfortunately, they have resumed.

I'm aware that word usage differs regionally and often changes over time. However, there are also rules that should be followed in English language. The word "disappear" is an intransitive verb, which means that it can't take an object or be used as a past participle in passive form (i.e. used adjectivally). When I was in school, such usage would be marked wrong on papers and students would be downgraded. There are plenty of other verbs that could be used to describe what is happening to people during the raids. The best I can think of is "seized," but if someone really wanted to draw attention to it, they could say "kidnapped" or "abducted." Some folks may take issue with those latter two, but at least they are grammatically correct.

 

[evilmonkey239]

Tired of having the same, internet-originating slang from my generation. The other day in class, I heard “crash out”, “tweaking” and “I’m just a girl” within probably an hour of each other from the same pair of people.