Purge this Wacky Word from Your Vocabulary

Thanks to all of you who have been commenting and adding to our wacky-word conversation these past few weeks. Please continue to post your questions and share your examples. Meanwhile, get ready to purge this week’s wacky word from your vocabulary. See if you can spot the culprit in these sentences:

You will also want to review the manual, which lists the top things we must all focus on to be successful.

These experiences have at least one thing in common: they were my first real exposure to project management.

If you ask stakeholders what they think about an issue, you’ll likely garner valuable information—things like insider knowledge, potentially controversial issues, etc.

Things.

Listen: There is ALWAYS a better word than thing. We cheapen what we are talking about when we refer to it as a thing. We water down our language by habitually calling items things. We can do better.

Case in point: I heard someone say she had a speaking thing next weekend. She had been hired to speak at an event. I’m sure the event planners did not view it as a “speaking thing.” They were paying her a nice fee. A preferred substitute would be to call it a speaking engagement. 

So, let’s have some fun finding more suitable words for the three sample sentences. Here’s the first one:

You will also want to review the manual, which lists the top things we must all focus on to be successful.

More professional-sounding substitutions are items, tasks, topics, goals, objectives. See if you can come up with others, but any of the words listed are better than things.

These experiences have at least one thing in common: they were my first real exposure to project management.

Simply rephrase it by saying: These experiences have one commonality.

If you ask stakeholders what they think about an issue, you’ll likely garner valuable information—things like insider knowledge, potentially controversial issues, etc.

For this sentence, delete things altogether. Rewrite it by saying “…valuable information such as insider knowledge, potentially controversial issues, etc.”

As you can see, getting rid of this wacky word “ain’t nuthin’ but a thing.”

 

To customize a keynote or professional development session that will have your audience laughing and learning, contact Mandi Stanley.

Certified Speaking Professional Mandi Stanley works with business leaders who want to boost their professional image by becoming better speakers and writers through interactive high-content keynotes, breakout sessions, workshops, technical writing seminars, and fun proofreading classes. 

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