Power up your communications – Part 2 – avoiding killer words

Today in this post we continue examining words that make you look weak and how to replace defeatist words with power words.

Being apologetic

“Sorry” and “Just” are the two most offensive words in this category. Eliminate sorry unless you are truly making an apology. “Just” creates the inference that what you are saying is not important and you are apologizing for inconveniencing the other person to have to attend to your communication.

Flabby, tentative words

Phrases such as “would like to” “might be able to” “helped out” all make you sound weak. Use action words that accurately describe what can do or will do. Action words make you a doer. Doers get jobs done. 
 
 Defeatist words:

If you continually use defeatist words you will defeat yourself before you even start. These words not only send out negative messages but also program you internally for failure. The following shows some defeatist phrases and how they can be turned into more positive ones:

Defeatist	Powerful
“I have to”	“I choose to”
“I might”	“I will”
“Maybe”	“Certainly”
“I can’t”	“I can”
“I don’t know”	“I’ll find out”
“I’ll think about it”	“Let me give it some thought”

 Sometimes it is not just the word itself but the choice between 2 different words that can add or subtract power from what you say.

For example, in “Friendliness is a salesman’s best asset,” you replace “friendliness” with “a smile”. The new sentence reads, “A smile is a salesman’s best asset.” Friendliness conveys too many things, and is ambiguous. However, the word smile always has a positive connotation, everyone is won over by a smile, and the word can easily be visualized. 

Lastly, peppering your sentences with “Ah,” “Oh,” “Like,” “Sure,” or any other word that has no real use in a sentence (just listen to a teenager and you’ll see what I mean!) makes you sound less intelligent.

The old adage says “the pen is mightier than the sword.” In your communications, make sure your words are sharp like daggers, not dull like butter knives!

Tramp Stamps, Bromance, Tweeting, and Waterboarding

In my Fun with Language post “Creating New Words”, I wrote about how people creatively come up with new words to describe situations. In truth, our language is constantly changing with real new words being added all the time. For instance, before 1945 the word “television” didn’t exist. “Internet” entered common usage only in the early 90s. Lexicographers  have added over 2,000 new words, phrases and new meanings to the third edition of The Oxford American Dictionary and more are to come!

New words that our popular culture has inserted into the English language include: unfriend (thanks to FaceBook), agroterrorism, megachurch, staycation (stay at home vacation), tweet (not a new word but an added definition to the sound a bird makes, thanks to Twitter) and waterboarding. New words might enter our social conversations on a daily basis, but they do take years to be “approved” for inclusion in The Oxford American Dictionary.

 New phrases which also can be a combination of new and old words or words used in a new way to describe something, become sanctioned as part of our language as time goes on. Some examples that didn’t exist 10 years ago: get one’s arms around, my bad, job something out, less is more, what’s not to like?, have skin in the game, talk the talk, and the ubiquitous “heart” as a synonym for love, as in “I heart publicity.”

Thanks to texting’s (here is an old word with a new definition!) and Twitter’s condensed character recquirements, there are also a variety of abbreviations that now substitute for words, including TTYL (talk to you later), LBD (little black dress), BFF (a girl’s best friend, which originated from best friend forever), and LMAO (laughing my *** off).

As to computer spell checkers coming into the 21st century, dream on. As I’m writing this, my computer dictionary is telling me I have a bunch of spelling errors, all of which are the “new words”. The last time I played scrabble against my computer, it wouldn’t accept any of these new words but some of the words it used were too obscure for a human to have used.

So, writers, authors, publishers and English teachers, do you feel uncomfortable using any of these words in your writing? Why? Do you consider them nothing more than slang and should not have a place in The Oxford American Dictionary?

OK, if you’ve been asking “What the heck is a ‘tramp stamp’ or a ‘bromance’” surf (ah, another old word that now has a new definition!) to the Oxford University Press’s blog to find the answer and learn more new and off the wall words and phrases.