It's Only Words...

As the Bee Gees sang over 40 years ago, “It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.” Here are some word abuses that, coming as they so often do from people who are paid to write or speak, are particularly disheartening: 

Enormity
When the slave trader Batiatus (Peter Ustinov) sycophantically addresses the Roman general Crassus (Laurence Olivier) as “Your enormity” in “Spartacus,” he is accurately, if inadvertently, recognizing the excessive wickedness of Crassus. I've heard sports-talk hosts pompously and repeatedly misuse the word as a synonym for enormousness.

Disinterested

It doesn’t mean not interested. It means unbiased or impartial. An arbiter should be disinterested but not uninterested in a decision.

Roll out
A perfectly useful term to describe a football play in which the quarterback takes the snap and then runs along the line of scrimmage with the option to pass or run. Non-sports reporters now habitually write such drivel as “Acme announced plans to roll out its new gadget package.”
      No one, it seems, simply introduces a product or plan anymore. And, by the way, products and plans are out, replaced by “packages.” Which are activated, rolled out across multiple platforms, and ramped up -- whatever that means. Or maybe they have to be ramped up first in order to get them onto the platforms.

Closure

A favorite word of traffic reporters. Roads are no longer closed; they are in a state of closure. Summer resorts, by the same token, would be closured for the winter and secret meetings would be held behind closured doors.

Impacted

Wisdom teeth can be impacted; wisdom can be affected but not impacted by something.

As well

Synonymous with “also,” “too,” and “and.” Memo to sports broadcasters: Tacking on “as well” to the end of any sentence which already includes one of those synonyms does not add gravitas to your statement, only redundancy. Using more than two of the above synonyms together brings new meaning to the term “triple double.”

Fortuitous
It doesn’t mean fortunate or lucky. It means happening by chance or accident.

Activity

According to weather forecasters, we no longer get rain; instead, we get a "rain situation" or "shower activity."