The comedian Louis CK talks about this: "When did we start taking our words from the top shelf?"

http://open.spotify.com/track/5xQmQDCbyZCwXttJtrNj4j

There's some effin' an jeffin' and all that. It's NSFW, some might be offended, viewers of a weaker disposition etc, etc.

I don't think it's lazy. It's just a military term that's found common use as a metaphor in other idioms - sports, music, fashion, etc. No-one would claim it's being used in it's original, literal sense. If anything, these other uses have become the norm in English - and you certainly won't find the military version of the term used much in 2011, if at all, even in an era where Tripoli might be said to have been "taken by storm". Language moves on.

It's poncy and innapropriate for the activity it describes.

It's ascribing heroism and the projection of will to fecking dance and charcoal drawing.

Sorry. But we'll have to disagree on this.

A fancied player never simply "loses" to a lesser opponent in an early round.

They are always "bundled out".

When someone dies, tributes never "arrive", they always come "flooding in".

There must be a name for this kind of hyperbole.

Other than hyperbole, that is.

This egregious euphemism for the assassination of Osama.

"Taken out"? Really? Was it a treat, or did they split the bill?

a deluge of replies on this. Surely your controversial opinions must have caused a level of disagreement of seismic proportions.

that using the phrase 'taking by storm' is a bit lazy but to imply that it is somehow disrespectful to soldiers etc is a bit daft.

How about "glassed the face of the London art world/Broadway, Glynebourne, Edinburgh Festival, AA Gill with a dirty tankard?'

as used by the idiot India Knight and sundry other Polly Fillers about whatever bit of inconsequential nonsense has momentarily flittered across a few restaurant tables in Fulham. 'The whole countries talking about Stella MacCartney's new Fish-skin winter boot collection' 'The question of qualifications for Polo instructors is currently obsessing the nation'. etc, etc. .

Football club's new signings are always 'unveiled'. No they're not. Sky Sports do not cut to a shrouded figure on a plinth in front of the sponsors' wall with the smug manager's hand on the cord ready to trill "ta-da!!". They should. But they don't.

'Just sayin'...'' and 'Is it me?'* and the most hateful of all, 'Are you thinking what's she's thinking'? that accompanies Jan Moir's columns in The Daily Mail.

*As does Andrew Harrisson in his amusing piece in Word a few issues back.

as in '10 things WE love about the great British fry-up' or 'Why WE're all twats for Twitter' or whatever. Popularised by Heat in the late 90s and adopted by everyone from The Times to Saga Magazine to the Argos catalogue to The Word.

Fuck. Off. YOU don't speak for ME.

which means to remove 10%, when used for something much worse.

"The population of the village below the volcano was decimated" - accompanied by pictures of lava passing through said village at roof top height.

"That's bad", I think to myself, "but I'm amazed they got off so lightly...".

X is like Y .... on Acid!

Sketch says it all

'Ok, define at least eight of these different levels then'. --- writer, Dan Maier

I can't bear what I call the pseudonym-reveal. The Guardian in particular can't bear to not tell you someone's real name in the opening sentences.
Just to take a few random reviews from their webpage:
"Stephen Bruner loves the intergalactic cartoon felines Thundercats so much, he took their name as his own."

"Texas trio Ringo Deathstarr aren't just fans of British shoegaze royalty such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, they've basically created a "How To" guide in their debut album, Colour Trip. Guitars are drenched in reverb and effects, the duel vocals of Elliott Frazier and Alex Gehring coalesce into an unintelligible mass throughout, "

"Stockholm's Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck make heady, sumptuously textured soundscapes that pulse with feeling." (I Break Horses Hearts)

"It's hard to believe that Yuck, a London band fronted by 20-year-old Daniel Blumberg (formerly of the effervescent Cajun Dance Party, who burned brightly but faded away after one album in 2008) are so young."

It's like there's no point in having a band name anyway as they'll just pick up on the singer's full name and run with it. We'd be living in a more Zimmerman world these days if the Grauniad had it's way. Romance? Mystery? They hates it they do!

Boffins like Barnes Wallis helped shorten the war, but then they died out until tabloids rediscovered the word.

Now any scientist or engineer with a new invention is a boffin. Indeed anyone with any sort of science degree is a boffin. It probably extends down to anyone passing GCSE science courses.

how the fuck else would you raze a building? Not just a cliche but bad usage too.

Grr

"keep me across" all the transfer deadline dealings...where the effing hell did THAT come from???

How many times have you heard that word on the news in the past month? Why has this rather old fashioned adjective suddenly become popular?

its a short step from here to being Rufus Hound on Channel 4 complaining about the ineffectiveness of staplers.

Let it go....

And shame on you for watching 100 Greatest Gits in the first place.

and I thought it was the nadir of TV. I'm sure someone was about to gaffaw

"Still using PAPER and wanting it TOGETHER. But HEY, not too MUCH Paper, I can't cope! I mean, what's THAT all ABOUT?

You will become this

Bit harsh, for people merely posting a few innocuous observations on a messageboard (when they should be getting on with something important).

of policies
of compromises
of ideas
of proposals
...of nonsense!

by American music mags on the denim and studs side of rock is the unlovely expression "balls to the wall", or sometimes, simply, "balls out".

I think I know what they mean, but they come (oo-er) with distinctly unpleasant connotations all the same.

that start with the word 'Now' as in 'Now they want to tax our children'
Like we were midway through a conversation.
I hate newspapers.

There are phrases which the journalist has just lifted off a shelf, or because they assume (rightly?) that their readers won't "get it" if they try to use more original language. This doesn't piss me off, it's just patronising when people whose job is to write stuff for your benefit, can't seem to do it without resorting to oodles of cliches.

Some more examples;

- no-one gets made redundant, they're always "axed"

- disagreements are always "fury"

- an accident is always a "horror"

- MPs are always referred to in military/violent terms ("the Praetorian Guard of Tory HQ", "X has been un-muzzled and set loose on the LibDems", "mopping up the opposition" etc etc) - it just sounds like w*nk-fantasy for the journalist and the MP alike, which is why they continue to do it

- someone who has had a bad experience talks about their "agony".

As CJ once said, "a cliche to me is like a red rag to a bull".

of no great consequence, two of the phrases which unfailingly piss me off are "lazy journalism" and "badly written."
On most occasions they are trotted out (there's another one!) it's by people who have no concept of working in an under-pressure newspaper or magazine office environment attempting to make deadlines, write to length, come up with a story in the first place, with subs, news editors, sports editors, features eds, editors screaming at you to hurry up with your copy.
Not all writers are fortunate enough to be jetted out to LA and put up in luxury to interview Tom Waits or someone in some swanky suite and have days to file their copy.
For most of us it's not about coming up with exquisitely-sculpted, never-before-used phrases or metaphors/similes but like most other people it's about doing what needs to be done as well as it needs to get done to keep getting paid.
While I'd love to be ground-breaking and original at all times what I care most about is getting sufficient freelance work done to feed my family, if it's not "Ulysses" or early Bob Dylan, so be it.
Winners will continue to be "rammed home," batsmen "bowled neck and crop" and, no doubt, "sonic cathedrals of sound" erected until the day I am told I have endless time on my hands to fanny about coming up with Gerard Manley Hopkins style neologisms or comparisons as yet undrawn by any other writer or hack in the history of the printed word.
"Lazy Journalism" often means "the writer has a different view than I have" and in 20-odd years I have never had a sub or an editor or anyone knock anything back to me on account of it being "badly written" although plenty of people on comment threads or football/music/cricket forums have labelled my stuff so!

And any of a billion other examples of management wank-speak. Grrr.

On the other hand, they also gave rise to Wank Words Bingo, which at least makes having to listen to this unutterable nonsense bearable.

sit in a management meeting - first person to cross off all the words on this list wins

Synergy / Strategic Fit / Gap Analysis / Best Practice / Bandwidth / In the Loop / Benchmark / Value-Added / Proactive / Win-Win / Think Outside The Box / Fast Track / Knowledge Base / Mindset / Client Focused / Leverage