Digby Warde-Aldam

The 10 most annoying phrases of 2013

Sifting through the heaps of discarded language and redundant memes expended in the last twelve months, it’s clear that they don’t make ‘em like they used to. Ah, for the days when clichés were built to last! Twitter now rolls out disposable buzz phrases like a chopstick factory, and all we can do is get a bit angry and forget about them.

This is not to say that Neology is dead. This year gave us ‘Twerking’, which I rather like – provided it remains confined to inverted commas rather than let loose in my kitchen. Another 2013 winner is ‘Chumley’ – shorthand for laddish berks with aristocratic pretentions and red trousers. It’s useful, it’s funny and it genuinely identifies something previously unformulated as a word.

These are the exceptions. Elsewhere, politicians, journalists and celebs alike have made this a diamond of a year for crimes against the English language. It is unlikely you’ll want to be reminded of any of this rubbish (YOLO, after all), but like it or not, here’s our top ten.

1. ‘Here’s the thing…’

Originally a rhetorical device used only by TV detectives, 2013 has seen this banish ‘the point is’ from the airwaves. Like the eponymous monster of John Carpenter’s so-titled 1982 horror film, this ‘Thing’ is a shape shifter; according to Ed Miliband, it’s that David Cameron is ‘strong at standing up to the weak’; Bill Bryson claims it is that brown bears occasionally attack humans; it is also, I’m told, the name of a chat show podcast hosted by Alec Baldwin. Whatever definitive form it takes, it’s here, there and everywhere.

2. ‘Totes amazeballs’

This is a bit more like it – something to get really angry about. It combines two superfluous neologisms into a phrase so irritating that it’s actually rather impressive.

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