Top 10 Words/Phrases You Don’t Want to Use Anymore

 “We were playing a game and I said the winning team’s name followed by the phrase ‘FTW’ which I had always associated with ‘For The Win.’ However, after saying that phrase the room went hush and there was a noticeable pallor that set in the faces of many of the students and leaders—the whole atmosphere had changed once I said that. I noticed this and quickly added “For the Win” hoping that I didn’t say anything too offensive. It was too late…”

It wouldn’t kill ya to eliminate “For the Win” from your vocabulary.

That’s gay
Sadly, this term was commonplace in previous decades; I wish the term were totally extinct. It’s not. I still hear kids (and even some adults) frequent the term. This term is just insensitive. If you ever want to completely close the doors to having a positive influence in the life of someone experimenting with same-sex relationships… just use terms like this. If by chance this term is floating around in your vocabulary, hit the delete button on this one.

Hit that
Guys commonly will check out a girl and say, “Oh, I’d like to hit that,” stating a desire to have sex with her. Consequently, the word “hit” has been corrupted. As much as I know this, I commonly forget and mess this one up. Literally yesterday I was picking up my daughters from youth group. As I was leaving, their friend Jeffrey jumped in front of my car. He innocently turned his backside toward my headlights, laughing and daring me to hit him. My 13-year-old said, “You should have hit him right in the butt, Dad!” Before thinking, I rolled down the window and yelled, “I really wanted to hit that!” Awkward.

Tap that
“Tap that” has the exact same meaning as “hit that.” Similarly, it has corrupted most uses of the word “tap.” How many times have you sat in a meeting where someone says, “Now we need to start tapping into that resource”? Maybe that doesn’t sound so bad, but soon people start talking about resources we’d like to tap into. In my last book, I tried to explain to the editor why we couldn’t keep a sentence that said, “She had resources that everyone wanted to tap.” Sigh.

I’ll go down
Please don’t. People used to “go down” in history, or “go down” in flames. If someone held a record for most homeruns they might have “gone down” as having the best record. Now days, you don’t want to announce “going down.” For most young people, “going down” brings oral sex to mind. My buddy Jason used the term with a friend when they risked grabbing some Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups from his mom’s kitchen. Knowing he might get in trouble, Jason said, “I’m willing to go down for those.” Let’s just say that Jason had some explaining to do.

That’s what she said
Sometimes you’ll find yourself verifying what someone said in everyday conversation. When you do, you probably would avoid some chuckles if you steered clear of the phrase, “that’s what she said.” When I worked construction years ago, this was the joke frequently used by anyone who wasn’t creative enough to use actual humor. The phrase hasn’t gone away, maybe because of people like Steve Carell who are keeping the joke alive, or maybe just because the world is full of people that are really trying hard to be funny.

Rack
I don’t care if your mom bought a new bike rack, cooked a rack of lamb, or prepared the yummiest rack of ribs you’ve ever tasted… don’t compliment her on her rack. Look it up.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

Partner- sure, it might be common in the business world, but today it means so much more!

Oral- Oral reports, oral exams. Sure, they’re common. But be careful when saying, “Today she’ll do the written; tomorrow she’ll do the oral.”

Back door- Not a good idea to put this on a flier. You never want to tell kids to go in the back door, enter through the rear… enough said.

Anything that rhymes with “eezy” or “izzle”- Snoop Dog can still get away with this… but you can’t. Stop it.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? What words/phrases did we miss? Jump on and comment- let us in on the verbal catastrophes you’ve experienced.