EUTAM: Needs

This is an EUTAM that isn't so much an incorrect usage of English, just one that specifically gets on my nerves.

It's the use of the word "needs" as a noun, viz, "For all your albino elephant juggling needs."

I don't know why this particular usage bugs me, but it does. I don't even have a better way to say what this sentence intends to convey. The thing advertised serves all of your albino elephant juggling needs. It is the thing you need to have when you're juggling a lot of albino elephants.

I mean, I suppose you could say, "This thing is what you need when you're juggling albino elephants," but it doesn't quite convey the same sense, does it?

I don't know. Needs. I don't like it. Anyone have anything else like that - a EUTAM that isn't wrong, and you don't have a better way of saying it, but it just bugs you?

EUTAM: "In Terms Of"

There's an increasing tendency that annoys me in terms of using the phrase "in terms of" as a way of adding words to the end of a sentence that should have been in the body of the sentence itself.

Example:

1) "We had an excellent year in terms of profit and pie."

No.

"Our profits and pie this year were excellent."


2) "We need to look forward in terms of seeking new revenue and more pie."

No.

"We need to seek new revenue and more pie."

Everyone is over-using this phrase. Everyone. And I really don't get it, in terms of why everyone insists on using it.

See how annoying it is?

It's like a little peg added to the end of a sentence that really doesn't mean anything at all.

We really need to stop doing things in terms of using the phrase "in terms of" too often.

Here endeth the lesson.

English Usage That Annoys Me

Today's EUTAM: Incorrect use of the word "impact," and outright fabrication of non-words like "impactful" and "impactfulness" and "impactive." See, my spell check is angry about all of those.

An "impact" is a physical collision of one thing into another - like a meteor impacting the earth.

Correct use: The meteor's impact was felt over a wide area.

Incorrect use: "This was an impactful movie." If it was, the film reel itself would have had to slam into the earth hard enough to create a new word out of thin air.

Correct use: "This movie affected me on a deep emotional level."

This gets into a whole other area of affect vs. effect, but I'll leave that for another day.

In sum: unless there's a meteor involved, or some other thing physically hitting another thing, you don't have an impact.

Here endeth the lesson.

New Feature: English Usage that Annoys Me

Every so often I'll post one of these, starting below.

English Usage that Annoys Me for Monday, July 11, 2011

There's a tendency among professionals to use the word "same" in a particular way that annoys me. Example:

"I will draft the document and expect you to sign same."

I would replace the word "same" with the word "it."

"I will draft the document and expect you to sign it."

"Same" just seems like an unnecessary and awkward phrasing of something that can easily be expressed by the use of a pronoun.

It's not wrong, per se, but it is annoying.

I don't get a lot of comments on Sinister, but I know at least a few of you are reading same (see what I did there?), so please comment below. What's a grammar or language usage thing that annoys you?