things in writing that unreasonably irritate me

Posted on October 28th, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Badness, Editing.

You know how people use "one" to coyly mention a famous person?  "Released in 1960, it featured guitar work by the two brothers, as well as harmonica played by one Bob Dylan."

I hate that.

2 comments.

TMcG

Comment on December 11th, 2006.

So do I. It makes me uncomfortable in the same way I'm made uncomfortable by, say, mention of "our beloved Joe Protagonist and Susan Sidekick" on novel-homage sites. One is a form of disingenuous understatement, the other a cloying overstatement. They're both precious and unnecessary.

There's gotta be a rhetorical term for the "one" construction, but I can't find it, and now it's itching at me.

Scraps

Comment on December 11th, 2006.

I don't like that one either. There's a whole class of stock locutions that amount to pointlessly dressing up ordinary communication. Another one is the refusal to use an ordinary verb or noun: you don't write a book, you scribe a tome.

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