Badmovies.org Forum

Overused words and phrases.  I posted a comment about this on Facebook . . . thought the Bad Movies crew might have some stuff to add:

#1 - "Teachable Moment" (when I was a kid this was called a screw-up)

2.) "Girl" or "Girlfriend" in the realm of a female calling her female friend that.

Two of the most over-used ones here are "at the end of the day" and "leveling of the playing fields".

"IT'S FRIDAY!"  when its Friday. 

"Is it hot/cold enough for you?"

hi
it,s time for sex!!!!

dad!!!!!!

what are you doing?

"Like." Oh yes, it's still around, and it's still annoying as hell when it's not being used in a simile. Especially if it's flung around the conversation where most people would simply say "um" or pause for half a second to collect their thoughts before speaking.

Oh I'm with you on that one. "Like" drives me nuts. Now I'm prone to pepper my speech with some "um's" here and there. However, I've even seen people use both "like" and "um," and frequently. Or even stick in a "you know" before the "like."

Overuse of the words "basically" and "obviously" also annoy me. "Basically" either means the person feels he/she is dumbing down the thing they're explaining, or they don't have a clue what they're talking about and adding the word "basically" makes them fill in some words. "Obviously" drives even more nuts, and you see this done by public speakers all the time. If you're having to explain a thing to me, then it certainly isn't obvious, or you wouldn't have to explain it, would you? Or maybe the person is explaining something to a group, and they say some point they are making is obvious. Well, it may be obvious to some, but why would you assume it's obvious to everyone? Thanks for making the rest of us feel like morons because we don't "obviously" get it.

"Always the last place you look." I know this is an old joke, but it's still good observational humor. Well, yeah, dips**t, if you found what you're looking for, and presuming that you're not going to keep looking for something once you've found it, it's pretty clear that it's going to be in the last place you look.

This is like the "You Know What Really Grinds My Gears" thread. I love it.

"Actually".  Anyone who's read more than two of my sentences has probably come across it  :teddyr:  It's actually a completely pointless word to stick in a sentence.

Another good one. So, does that mean that if you don't say "actually" that you are saying something that is NOT actual?

That's like people who say "honestly." Okay, are you normally lying to me and only telling me the truth when you preface it with "honestly?"

"Don't you know..." or "Can you believe...."

I get so tired of these two phrases

 :bouncegiggle:

lol (Really...)

 :bouncegiggle:

My bad~ ACTUALLY its just a cheap way to get around apologizing   :teddyr:

New and improved~ OBVIOUSLY its not new and it is not improved,just more expensive.

LOL

when speaking out loud- f**k!

"FML"  people use this idiocy way to much.  I can understand if you're doing a status update on FB like for example;

"A plane crashed in my backyard and destroyed my swimming pool and shed and now I have reporters everywhere asking me questions and I can't get out of my driveway FML."

However most of the time its usually something like this...

"I just ran out of milk FML"

 :lookingup:

Really is life that harsh for such minor things?

One strike against me and I swear I subconsciously do this without even thinking.   The word "basically".  One time I did a speech and recorded myself.  I said "basically" about once every sentence.  I hate the word and it usually has no context in what I'm saying but I just can't help using it.  Its like a comfort word.   :bluesad:

what does FML means? Either way, IRETU! :teddyr:

"F#ck My Life"

“Sit and say”!  One of my managers at work finds a way to insert this phrase into just about every other sentence, and she talks really fast!  Every time she wants to point out where someone is going to make a decision, they’re “sitting and saying”. “We’ll give them the list and they’ll sit and say what they want to keep and what they don’t need.”  “I’m not going to be the one to sit and say this is the direction we’re going to go!”  So my friend and I make sport of it by trying to keep a straight face while using “sit and say” in a sentence while talking to her, trying to count how many times she says it in a meeting, or going back and forth with things like “I’m going to sit and say that cookie is for me!” “and I’m going to sit and say… you’re fired!”

I try to switch up some of the words I know I use too much, such as “really” and “poop”, and I confess, I’m a “like” abuser, especially when I’m talking to friends that use it too.  Sometimes I cringe when I find myself doing it, but at least I try!  I don’t embrace my “like” abuse.  Please forgive me.

WTF is FML? OMG! IRETU too!

I'm a "like" guy too.  Another word I'm trying to edit out of my vocabulary.

"Pretty" too...as in "that pretty much sums it up".

"Awesome."  :smile:

"Literally," especially since it's almost always used to convey the exact opposite meaning.  Why do people run around saying things like "I literally died when I heard that?"

Another one I use all the time that I hate;

"You know what...(insert blank)..."

example

"You know what I saw on TV the other day..."

I don't know why I do that.  I mean the other person would have no friggin' idea would they?

Often, people just use FML in vague whiny ways such as "FML! This sucks!" Somebody else will reply with "lol dude wuz wrng" The first person will inevitably reply with some sort of cryptically whiny BS such as "Ppl dont get me!"

I want to say "Maybe people don't get you because you don't tell them what the problem is!" However, I'm sure that 95% of the time people are just being whiny for attention and out of boredom.

Either way I never reply for 3 reasons:

1. I'm too busy crying tears of rage.

2. I don't want to encourage their nonsense by replying.

3. I'm very busy wondering why I decided to be Facebook friends with them in the first place.

"Meh." It always seems so snotty and dismissive, like lumping a paragraph's worth of jadedness and disdain into three letters.

Same with "FAIL." That was funny when applied to things that go spectacularly or humorously wrong. Then everybody started using it, for what mostly seems like derisive attacks on people for any little mistake, funny or not.

Or when the same mistake crops up again and again. It kind of loses its meaning (especially "EPIC FAIL") when you've seen it applied to bus/truck drivers overestimating the height of the bridge/tunnel they're about to drive under around a dozen times.

Let's be clear: an epic fail is when something goes so spectularly wrong that you just know that not only will you never see it happen again in your lifetime but there's a fair chance that it's never happened before in the history of the world.

"It is what it is"  - people say this like they are being so profound :bouncegiggle:

Another one I used to hear a lot a few years back but not as often anymore is "it's all good."  That one irritates the crap out of me.  No, it is NOT all good. You've got to be some kind of moron to believe that! :bouncegiggle:

 

Heyyy... welcome back, Sister Grace! *HUG*

Cussing in general.

*************

I know someone who uses "you know what?" so frequently it resembles a twitch.  When I get to the point where I cannot take it *one*more*time* I reply with, "No, I don't, but you're going to tell me" and she stops dead, looking confused.  She does not even know she is saying it.  Which somehow makes it worse.

My own transgression is saying "How would you like to..." when making a request of someone.  My kids delight in pointing out that no, they would not "like to" particularly, but they will.

Fluorometholone Ophthalmic Suspension?

It is what it is. I haven't cared much for that one since that unhealthy working environment I was in a couple of years ago. The managing editor gave me a negative performance review that totally contradicted everything he said in some other pointless corporate evaluation two weeks earlier, in which I was a solid, dependable and professional asset to the team. When I asked him how I could get such a negative review when just two weeks earlier I was doing a great job, he responded with "It is what it is." That guy was about as two-faced as they come.

I have much fonder memories of "It's all good." A good friend of mine used to say that so much, it became a running joke for my wife and me.

What I find really funny is the way expressions sometimes get used. It made me laugh to see "It's all good" adopted as a slogan by McCain Foods. Yeah, I know they mean to put a literal twist on it, since their food is all good. But that's not how I hear the phrase used anywhere else. Looks like they're advertising their indifference.

http://www.mccain.com (http://www.mccain.com)

McCain: It's all good. Makes me think of a few similar alternatives.

McCain: It's good enough.
McCain: We really don't give a crap.
McCain: It's done. We're not fixing it.
McCain: Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
McCain: What's the difference?
McCain: Nobody's going to notice.
McCain: Whatever.

Well, then, Rev, you will love this:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally)

I (almost) literally p**sed myself laughing.

"Nazi", "Hitler" and "Socialism" have been overused to death lately....

My favorite is "communist Nazi." It may seem reasonable to the person slinging that term, but it's a hilarious oxymoron to anyone with at least a decent grasp of both philosophies.

Getting raped.

I read some news story about a person complaining about a banks charges on his account and he says "I'm literally getting raped by my bank with overdraft charges."

I feel like this would not be a case that would make it to the Special Victims Unit.

I always groan when somebody throws the Hitler insult at people with conservative values I would consider very much in line with the generation that fought the Nazis.

Might as well call somebody a poopie head as use historical analogies that don't work.

Well, if the person is "literally" getting raped, then perhaps it is newsworthy. Is it the entire bank staff raping this person, or just the branch manager?

In the business world, you hear the word "incentivize" a lot these days. It's not so much the making up of a new word that bugs me, this is actually a reasonable new word for the always mutable English language. No, it's the buzzword status of it. It's like "value-added." I watched the only episode of The Apprentice that I've ever watched recently and that phrase was used over and over. I'm currently pursuing an MBA, and I hear all of these words and phrases all the time. "Management phrases" I call them, used by unimaginative, uninspired, hack managers to make people think they are such together managers. What a joke.

Just out of curiosity, how do you feel when people use the N word to describe liberals?

You mean "Nazi?" Can't say I've heard it applied as much to Liberals as labels like "communist" or "socialist" or even "totalitarian" but none of those are usually applicable to the people they're hurled at.

My issue is not with people of any political inclination. Just with people who make comparisons based on a very superficial understanding of history.

Is there a significant difference between communism and the National Socialist Party? Hmmm. Both very patriotic and into central control. Both very coercive.

I don't know, "communist Nazi" doesn't seem like much of an oxymoron to me.

They're both poopie heads.

Except that they're literally at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. To quote wikipedia: "Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless society structured upon communal ownership of the means of production and the end of wage labour and private property."

"Fascism is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy."

Mind you, the methods used to bring about both systems have been similar. It's the mindset and goals that are quite different.

That's only if you look at the political spectrum as a straight horizontal line with this on one end and that on the other. They're just two sides of the same damn coin. If you define the political spectrum in terms of statism vs non statism, and some do, then the political spectrum becomes a bit more 3 dimensional. The left to right horizontal line is simply how the "great unwashed" digests political thought. Statism is statism. Communism and fascism are just two sides of the same statist coin. If the methods or means are similar, then how different are they? I understand there are shades of gray here, but ultimately, statism sacrifices the individual for the collective. If one is in favor of that, then fine. I can accept that, just like I can accept that socialism works on a small scale. But on a larger scale, communism and fascism typically end up with roughly the same result.

Godwin's law in action.

In-f**king-deed. Well spotted. :cheers:

In fact, I think the post that led to it was about that very thing. So, in this case, it was appropriate.

Ha!  I'm so glad you said that so I don't feel like an office nerd bringing it up!  I had to fight not to use "incentivize" in revising one of our policies.. one of the execs wanted it, but I just refused and offered a solution using real words.

So you're a Breaking Bad fan too, huh?  :teddyr:

I know I use "actually" and "awesome" way too much; I'm too lazy to consult a thesaurus, I guess.
A former boss of mine used to say "You with me?" (as in, do you understand me) every other sentence.  And he was one of the nicer bosses I've had.  In my current job, the phrase "It's an audit issue" is used to justify every nitpicky rule/complaint that corporate HQ inflicts on us.  :lookingup:

An "issue" is something I find just mildly irritating. It's a problem, or maybe a concern, or even a complaint, but simple, direct language doesn't sound professional enough, so people have to pick a word that makes every little quibble sound important.

Corporate speak in general bothers me. In corporate speak, you just take words and run with them, making anything you want, based mostly on assumptions about the workings of the English language. I think as a journalist - a writer - it bothered me more than most people, particularly when some of the management types who spoke like this in my office were writers themselves, and should have known better.

I had an editor who used to always talk about "team" as some kind of a philosophy or idea or something. Not teamwork. Not being a team, or working as a team, team spirit, a team philosophy or "we are a team." It was just "team" as in "We believe in team." I wanted to smack him upside the head every time he said something like that, doubly so because his idea of a team was everybody working unpaid overtime and putting pressure on anybody who worked within the terms of their contract (i.e. me). Real nice when the "team" lecture comes as a result of expecting your employer to observe labour laws.

The other one I hate is "key." You can have a key component, or some little clue can be the key to solving a problem, but some corporate twit somewhere along the line extrapolated that into something being "key." Just key, as in "The report is key." I hate that. Used to be on a volunteer committee with a guy who used that all the time, a real smarmy, fast-talking character I really had to keep an eye on.

And the worst one, not really corporate speak, but definitely of the same family of expressions born of self-importance and bad English, is "surgery." I have no problem with surgery as a branch of medicine that often involves cutting into people. But "surgery" as a more technical sounding substitute for "operation" or "surgical procedure" annoys me. Not sure when this started, but I think it's just in the last ten or fifteen years people have been using it that way. I find it especially grating when people use "surgery" in plural, as in "He had six surgeries." That just sounds idiotic to me, especially when it comes out of a surgeon. That's partly because hearing it from a surgeon makes it sound more legitimate, and partly because a surgeon does not need to put on a phony air of authority.

Really, when did people start feeling insecure about using simple, correct language? I suppose the phenomenon is nothing new, but it seems to have grown to epidemic proportions. Maybe it's a product of the information age, with people becoming more accustomed to having the inside scoop on everything, and more insecure about not knowing. People today are pretty adept at sounding like they know what they're talking about, even when they don't.

The only one I disagree about is "surgery." But this is all just opinion anyway, right? But "surgery" seems more accurate and appropriate than "operation." "Operation" could mean a number of things not related to the medical field, but "surgery" is precise and has no ambiguity. I'll gladly accept "surgery" over "operation."

But I'm with you on all the rest, k?

The context usually makes it clear. Otherwise, there are terms that are clear and correct.

Sure it's one word that is not ambiguous, but where do you stop bending the rules? Surgeons "surgering?" Patients getting "surgeried" or "surgered?"

When people say, "Taco Hell" instead of Taco Bell.

Okay, people, maybe that joke was funny the first 1,420,245 times it was done, but it's getting old, can we just drop it?

That along with calling the guy M, Night Shamalyadingdong.  HAHA.  Yes, I know, his movies have sucked of late, but it's been several years now and we're STILL calling him that?  (sighs)

I just started calling him that, and I'm not going to stop for another year or two. Meanwhile, I'm off to get some lunch at Taco Hell.

 :tongueout:

I've always called Taco Bell "The Mexican Phone Company".  (get it?  :wink:)

Anyone who utters the phrase "think outside the box" should have to stand in the corner for two hours.
Anyone who uses the phrase "raise the bar" should be publicly flogged.

I don't like when people do that either

Keeping on restaurants, I personally don't like when people call McDonald's "Mickie D's".  

Agreed. Personally I call it Mcs**tstain's.

You've mentioned the "surgery" thing before, Andy, but honestly I have no idea what you're talking about.  I've heard "surgery" used as a synonym for "operation" all my life, and every dictionary I've consulted considers it proper usage.  I wonder if this doesn't come down to an American/Canadian usage difference: perhaps in Canadian English it was rare to use surgery in this way until recently.  If I had an Oxford English Dictionary I'd look it up. 

I'm so glad you guys said something!  Ever since Andy first posted about the "surgery" thing, I've been so nervous of misusing the word, I don't think I've said it again!  I feel weird about saying operation too, so when I was searching for ways around it, I'd say something like "knee replacement ...procedure" with "procedure" mumbled a little because that doesn't sound right to me either.  :bouncegiggle:

It's always bugged me just a bit when people use double negatives. 

Exp, "We don't have no inventory sheets left."

Course, maybe that's a Southern Illinois thing. 

If it's spoken by my co-workers whom I'm friendly with, I jokingly say, "Any." 

They're usually like, "What?"

"Any.  It's, 'We don't have ANY inventory sheets left.'"  Then I smile at them, so no one gets offended.

:)

THANK YOU!  My friends do that constantly and it hasn't been funny for about 5 years now (and I'm not even a fan of the guy).

On a related note, referring to Wal-Mart as "Hell-Mart", although it is a pretty apt description.

It just doesn't sound correct to me. Whether or not that usage is accepted for that specific word, it just doesn't follow the general rules of the English language as I understand them. I suppose it's not without precident, as "robbery" is used in much the same way. On the other hand, you wouldn't describe someone who is frequently sweet-talked as "receiving many flatteries." Flattery is the type of statement, not the statement itself. In proper usage, as I understand it, surgery is the type of procedure, not the procedure itself.

And using surgery in that fashion is a recent thing in my experience. For years, I always heard of people having an operation. Having "a surgery" is something I've noticed only recently, and the motivation seems to be the same as for saying "concept" instead of "idea" or "issue" instead of "problem."


"Knee replacement surgery" is perfectly correct. It refers to the type of procedure. You can say "he had knee replacement surgery" with complete confidence. However, "he had a knee replacement surgery" is incorrect. In that case, "a knee-replacement procedure" is correct, but totally unnecessary. I just call it a knee replacement. The surgical procedure is implied. Really, the best term for any operation is one that describes what's being done (a knee replacement, a heart transplant, a bowel resection, etc.)

Serious question, in case you know: what does the -ery suffix mean anyway?  We have "machinery," "battery," and "bakery," along with "robbery," "surgery," and "flattery."  The only constant I notice is they're all nouns.  I guess that, long ago, "surgery" may have referred to activities of surgeons, "bakery" to activities of bakers, "robbery" to activities of robbers, and so on, but obviously the meanings have shifted over the centuries.     

I don't mind an irreverent nickname if it is used casually and unconsciously. In Canada, we have a major hardware chain called Canadian Tire. All my life, it's been "Crappy Tire." That might have once been a clever statement on the quality of the merchandise there in the old days, but nobody thinks much about it now. When I was in high school, we used to get our hamburgers at "McPukes" without a hint of "wink wink, nudge nudge" in our use of the name.

On the other hand, I hate it when people use irreverent nicknames and other worn-out wordplay in a conscious attempt to sound clever, as if they're telling a joke you haven't heard a hundred times before. That and when people put a little too much contempt into the nickname, as if "Taco Hell" is some kind of indictment.

I think a nickname of any kind only works when people accept it as normal and use it as if it were the proper name. They all start out as a joke or a bit of wordplay, but something special happens. If after a couple of years you still only ever hear the name used as a deliberate joke, it's not a good nickname and people should refrain from using it or risk sounding stupid.

Well, a surgery has also been used to describe the place where surgery happens - the operating room. That would be consistent with a bakery.

It's surprisingly hard to find a simple definition of the suffix. Going by usage, my understanding is that it puts things in a general category. You can lump an assortment of devices together under the general term "machinery." Getting kicked, punched, beaten, bludgeoned, etc. can be generalized as "battery." Stealing anything with any kind of physical threat can be called "robbery." Any kind of compliment or other sweet talk falls under the heading of "flattery." "Surgery" is a category that encompasses all kinds of medicine that involve cutting into some part of the body.

Machinery is a great example. You can have a piece of machinery, or a machine, but people don't say "a machinery." Battery is another one. You generally don't hear about "a battery" referring to an instance of battery.

Of course, nothing is completely consistent with English, but I've drawn my line in the sand with surgery. I won't accept that one.

But dictionaries do, so your objection is beginning to look like crankery.   :wink:  I kid!

Dictionaries make ad hoc exceptions for this word and that word if enough people use them a certain way. Me, I like to follow the broader rules, at least when it comes to changing the usage of a word. I'm a little more fussy than usual with surgery, because that use sounds gratingly wrong to me from a grammatical perspective, and I initially heard it misused that way by people trying to sound smart, at least most of the time. Besides, there are better alternatives.

Dictionaries have always been somewhat arbitrary, depending on which one you read. I'm reminded of Noah Webster taking it upon himself to dumb down a good portion of the language for reasons as much political as practical.

As an editor, I also used to ignore the Canadian Press style book, except for proper names and areas of ambiguity. CP style and good grammar were not always the same thing.

Andy. Do you have enough whimsy in your life?

Plenty of whimsy. In fact, when I wasn't writing news, I used a much looser, more conversational style for editorials, entertainment, sports, etc. As an editor, I was much more flexible than editors I'd worked under. There are times when rigid, by-the-book English isn't really appropriate.

But having written and edited for a living for many years, I'm always very conscious of my use of language, and that of other people. I'm just trained to think that way. I tend to look at misuse of the English language the same way a tradesman would look at a friend's home reno that isn't entirely up to code. Even if it's not serious enough to mention, it's going to jump out at you every time you see it.

When it comes to language, it's doubly bothersome, because if enough people fail to follow the rules, the rules just change. The building code isn't going to do that.

And language is one of those areas where knowledge is not particularly recognized or respected, because everybody uses language every day. I think most people would equate mastery of the English language with a big vocabulary and an interesting style, without considering all of the nuts and bolts of grammar. I think that leads people to superficially imitate writers or speakers they admire, which is how we get so many catchphrases, buzzwords, and misused words. It's like the kid who picks up a guitar and tries to play like his rock idols, without considering the technical foundation that underlies the art. The difference is, that kid isn't likely to produce anything close to music without learning how it works, while the guy who does it with language can often get away with it.

"Surgery" as in "a surgery" bugs me not so much because I'm uptight about sloppy language, but because I see that usage rooted in other people being uptight about the words they use, and not getting the technical parts right. It's like creative spellings of names that ignore the way letter combinations are normally pronounced.

I was just wondering if you had enough whimsy.

Whimsy is a wonderful word that, not only do people not use it enough, they also don't have enough of the stuff in their lives. I may be a misanthrope, but I'm a misanthrope with lot's of whimsy in my life.

I bet some of my post make you want to scream.   :teddyr: 

That should be "posts."  :tongueout:

YES !

A thousand times, YES!

Its the stangest thing, it's like you didn't know that you put the word in your sentance. Its like it sneaked in when you weren't looking!

Its a like stop-gap word for when you feel you should say more.

Just an update. I found out through the grapevine that they recently fired that guy. Kind of surprising. By the time I left, a couple of years ago, he was overseeing several papers over a large area. The story I heard was that he'd just made too many bad decisions in the eyes of his superiors, and one of the decisions they were p**sed off about was firing me. Amazing how good it felt to hear that.

That reminds me. I love when corporations lay off a bunch of people and call it "corporate restructuring."

While I was technically laid off, and they were cutting staff, I was definitely fired. He just did it in a way that wouldn't get the company immediately sued, since it would have been totally against the terms of my contract, labour laws and company policy. But I always maintained that he hired somebody with experience, skills, ambition and initiative, kept me on too short a leash to benefit from it, and blamed me for not being everything he expected. The guy was a fool who constantly blew opportunities, half-developed good ideas before abandoning them, and spent too much time reacting and not enough acting. That and he was a dick.

Sounds like he was one of those guys who are good at stetching out a job that he is either unqualified for or just terrible at. I've know a few myself. Looks like he just ran out of bulls**t.

Quoted for Truth

It annoys the hell outta me when I see posts where somebody has just quoted another person's statement, stuck "quoted for truth" on it, and posted it.  You're not adding anything to the conversation so why even bother?



Also, anybody that quotes this and adds quoted for truth on it is getting negative karma.   :hatred:

Ah hell. I couldn't help it.

Quoated for Truth

 :tongueout:

I think he got at least one promotion too many.

"Raising awareness for breast cancer." We're aware. It's high time to move on to the next step/raise awareness for cancers that affect organs that actually are vital.

Commercials where the person saids Call now. WHY SHOULD I?! So wait, you're up at 3 AM then? It really p**ses me off when they have to play the same friggen commercials over and over and over and over again, even repeating the same thing! :hatred:

From:  http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/statistics.jsp

About 1 in 8 women in the United States (between 12 and 13%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.

Besides skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among U.S. women. More than 1 in 4 cancers in women (about 28%) are breast cancer.

About 39,840 women in the U.S. are expected to die in 2010 from breast cancer, though death rates have been decreasing since 1991. These decreases are thought to be the result of treatment advances, earlier detection through screening, and increased awareness.

(Awareness has increased self-examination; self-examination has been a huge factor in early detection; early detection increases survivability.  Awareness saves lives.  Not all cancers are as accessible to self-examination.)

For relative statistics of the most common types of cancers:  http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/commoncancers

That's true. It's a cancer you can find early yourself if you know enough to check. Prevention is where the awareness comes in.

Still, the awareness terminology often starts when people don't know much about something, then continues long after the awareness campaign has worked. There was a time when cancer was something nobody knew much about unless it affected somebody they knew, and they still might not have known what it was exactly, or that it affected different parts of the body. Go back 30 or 40 years, and a lot of people still assumed it was a lung disease you got from smoking too much. And not many people thought about prevention or detection. It was just a bomb your doctor dropped on you. So yeah, making people aware of cancer risks, and of common cancers other than lung cancer, was extremely important.

But at this point, people are generally aware, and the efforts we're currently seeing described as awareness would more properly be described as educating the public and rallying support to the cause. These were always the goal, with awareness as the first step.

Gravekeeper makes an excellent point though. There are other cancers that can be as emotionally devastating as breast cancer, as potentially disfiguring, and much more aggressive and difficult to treat. Breast cancer has exceptionally good support, due in no small part to the emotional power of women being maimed in an area so intimately tied to sex appeal, motherhood and womanhood in general. It's no coincidence that breast cancer awareness really took off in the 70s and 80s, as it is so easily tied to feminism.

But that doesn't mean breast cancer is getting too much attention, just that people need to do as well with other cancers. And I think research into any form of cancer will yield information that could help with all varieties. These days, a lot of promising cancer research is going on regarding the mechanisms of cell division, cell death and DNA replication. It's getting into areas where the results are going to be important to all cancers.

Personally, I would like much more public awareness of prostate and testicular cancer. And it wouldn't hurt to have PSAs emphasizing frequent examinations of both, with the assistance of a wife or girlfriend if necessary. :wink:

All I'm saying is that when I go into a grocery store/bus stop/any public space and see at least 3 notices about breast cancer, I think that plenty of awareness about the disease has been raised. Should more people self-examine? Sure. Will saturating public spaces help with that? Not too likely at this point, in my opinion.

With more self-examinations, we're catching more cancers earlier and thus the diagnosis rate goes up somewhat. There are people dying of other cancers that they simply aren't aware of because they aren't thinking to check for them themselves or to go to a professional to get checked. I know a lot of men and women who don't go in for their physicals like they should, even though they know that many doctors will check for signs of testicular/prostate/cervical cancer.

Lung cancer gets shunned somewhat simply because it's associated with smoking. Never mind that you can get lung cancer without smoking a single tobacco product in your life.

Let's face it: marketability has played a part in choosing which diseases most people are aware. It's easy to market organs associated with sex, but decidedly more difficult to "sell" organs that people generally don't talk about (eg- the large intestine. It can get cancer, too, and is considerably more difficult to treat than breast and testicular cancer).

So, yes, I'm glad that the exposure has helped to save many lives, but I feel that we're reaching the saturation point with these "awareness" campaigns.

The very fact that we are listing off other cancers in this thread indicates that raising breast cancer awareness also raises cancer awareness in general.

I think what set me off was the comment that other organs "actually are vital".  Cancer of any kind can kill if left alone.  It does not matter where it started out.   

ALL campaigns reach a saturation point: the 'art' of managing awareness of anything at all is in applying your resources in such a way as to maintain an optimum level of awareness with the minimum of investment.  Yes, detection has risen with/due to awareness. Apathy toward personal health was mentioned: without an active stimulus 'vigilance' (for lack of a better word) will drop off due to apathy and the detection rate will follow.

Health care in general - on both sides of the border - is persuing a policy of actively promoting personal responsibility for one's health with the emphasis on tactics of prevention.  I don't think awareness campaigns are about to fade away: they are likely to become even more common and the push will be on to saturate.
 

Lung cancer is the victim of an extremely effective awareness campaign - against smoking. Now there are a lot of misconceptions that need to be addressed, and a stigma attached to lung cancer that makes the public less sympathetic.


Colon cancer has gotten a fair bit of attention over the past 20 or 30 years, thanks to the profitability of selling cancer prevention and colon health as a benefit of breakfast cereal, fibre supplements and so on. I think the most effective campaigns have tended to have some other motivation behind them, whether it be breast cancer and feminism, lung cancer and anti-smoking or colon cancer and the cereal industry.

Unfortunately, colon cancer doesn't quite lend itself to a breast cancer type of campaign. An image of somebody's mom, post-mastectomy, is going to elicit a much more predictable emotional response than some old guy with a colostomy bag. In general, cancers that maim in outwardly visible ways, without being gross, seem to be the most marketable. Not visible enough, and people have a harder time identifying with it. Too disfiguring, and it only works for a scare campaign.

Terry Fox was an ideal face to put on cancer. Brave young man, looked good in photo ops, missing a leg. Sounds like a war hero, doesn't it? It's little wonder people got behind him the way they did.

Lance Armstrong too. Although you can't see his loss, most men can identify with it, and he sends exactly the right message.

Alright, I've been a bit of a bonehead about this. A few minutes of Googling and points you guys have brought up have proven me to be a bit misguided. The concept of consumer activism still bugs me a little since buying products that say "a portion of the proceeds will go to X" seems a little odd to me. Sure, it makes people feel better about themselves because they've supported X cause, but what portion of the proceeds? Exactly which charity/charities is it going to if it's going to a charity at all instead of printing more posters or something about the cause? While these products do raise money for their causes, it's nowhere near as efficient as taking the money you would have spent on the product and donating it to a charity/research.

Hello. This thread is back. The following phrase I overheard at work and instead of starting a new thread I thought I'd just bring this one back.

Politically Correct.

Please, people, stop using this tired phrase. It's not funny, clever, relevant, or meaningful anymore. I asure you, you're not cool when you say "I'm not politically correct." That phrase lost it's piquancy at least 15 years ago.

It's still a good word to describe certain policies, philosophies, decisions, etc., as it was before it became a buzzword in the early 90s. And it can be used much more broadly than most people understand it. Really, it applies to anything that is correct for political purposes, or in line with current political thought. It can also imply that such things are wrong for more important or fundamental reasons. Before it became a widespread buzzword, variations of the term had been around for many years, and even been embraced by different groups as both a good thing and in the ironic sense we know today.

But I agree that saying it for effect is dumb. The buzzword status of political correctness peaked around 1993 or so, tied to real issues and debates of the time. It was pretty much reduced to a joke through the mid-90s, so I think you've nailed it exactly. It's been at least 15 years since anyone sounded clever for saying it.