Friday, March 21, 2008

Burned Up With the Overuse of the word "Outrage"

Is everyone "Outraged?" You would think so if you listened to the news. Not being a betting man, I'll bet anyone reading this blog that if you watch the news today or tonight you'll hear one or more of the anchors report that some community or someone is "outraged." Outraged at this.... Outraged at that.... See www.google.com/trends and type in "outrage." You'll see a graph showing how often the word appeared in the news.

The word outrage can definitely be added to the list of overused words. It's to the point that I cringe every time I hear it used on the news. It seems as if everyone is in an outrage about something.

Let's take a look at some other words we can use in the place of the infamous "outrage": abuse, affront, atrocity, barbarism, damage, desecration, enormity, evildoing, harm, hurt, indignity, inhumanity, injury, insult, mischief, misdoing, offense, profanation, rape, rapine, ravishing, ruin, shock, violation, violence, wrongdoing, blowup, boiling point, cat fit, conniption, conniption fit, flare-up, fury, huff, hurt, indignation, mad, resentment, ruckus, shock, stew, storm, wrath, abuse, affront, aggrieve, boil over, burn up, defile, deflower, desecrate, fire up, force, ill-treat, incense, infuriate, injure, insult, jar, madden, maltreat, mistreat, misuse, oppress, persecute, raise cain, raise hell, rape, ravage, ravish, scandalize, shock, spoil, violate, whip up, wrong

Now, of course you will have to select the correct word for the situation, however, I'm sure many of these words can be used in the place of "outrage."

More importantly though, when will we as a people not have to be in outrage? When will we do away with the things that are causing all of this outrage? Racial strife, economic concerns, miseducation, thuggery and thievery, ignorance, sexual misconduct, underemployment, etc. etc. etc. That question won't be answered in this blog. For now though, would someone please clue our news writers and anchors in on their overuse of the word "outrage."

Critically thinking in Andy Rooney style; I welcome your thoughts.

3 comments:

TAP said...

I was surprised to see "rape" on your list given that its over-usage could have deleterious consequences for people who are rape survivors. How do you see "rape" as being overused?

TAP said...

My apologies; I re-read your post and see that it is a replacement for "outrage." How can you use it as such (as that too would have serious discursive consequences for rape survivors)?

Cartier McCloud said...

I am OUTRAGED at your simplistic and "activist" comment. I mean.....um....I'm taken aback...no...let's see...I'm...uh...getting upset now.......er....pis...uh no.....I'm going #1 at you. And I think you're full of #2. This is not about "victims" but the overuse of certain words. It's outrageous that you would bring something like this up. So there!