What do you think?
Rate this book
Junk English
Updating his survey of language atrocities, Ken Smith has again subjected himself to the continuing barrage of mindless jargon, hackneyed expressions, and war euphemisms. With hundreds of new examples pulled from everyday life, Junk English 2 shows how our language has become so pliable and flabby that the more we read and hear, the less we know.
144 pages, Paperback
First published October 2, 2001
4 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
About the author
Ken Smith
224 books11 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
August 24, 2008
Amongst my peers, this book is regarded as prescriptivism in its highest form.
However, for the everyday reader, who is a non-linguist, who cherishes this language and its intentions, it is a call to arms.
Obviously, we descriptivists find this slightly alarming, but no more so than the pedestrian cry for language conservatism, so often heard in this country.
Yeah, I'm a descriptivist, by and large. But Smith does seem to have a point.
Then again, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.
However, for the everyday reader, who is a non-linguist, who cherishes this language and its intentions, it is a call to arms.
Obviously, we descriptivists find this slightly alarming, but no more so than the pedestrian cry for language conservatism, so often heard in this country.
Yeah, I'm a descriptivist, by and large. But Smith does seem to have a point.
Then again, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.
July 6, 2008
Smith's a little grumpy and conservative about English--it's an evolving language, for Pete's sake--but I'm using this book in an Introduction to Creative Writing class in the hopes that my students will begin to think more consciously about language and its uses.
That said, I tend to agree heartily with Smith on several instances, especially the use of the friendly first person plural in advertisements, which attempts to create a nonexistant intimacy.
That said, I tend to agree heartily with Smith on several instances, especially the use of the friendly first person plural in advertisements, which attempts to create a nonexistant intimacy.
January 6, 2023
The typical dirty diary of a tory prescriptivist (we get it, you don’t like euphemisms)
November 2, 2014
Not that great. But everyone writes a lot should read this one, researchers especially. So we can get rid of fancy words in scientific papers.
April 28, 2023
There’s a good dose of fuddy duddy’ism with this book - a stuckism about using old words and resistance to changes in language use, which are natural and often for the better (reflecting current usage). What, really, is wrong with indicate (versus say, “reveal”), initiate (v. “filed,” or “hosted”), conceptualize (v. “imagine”), the aging process (v. “getting old”), reenergize (v. energize), reality (v. truth). What is the issue (“problem”) with abstract words? In varying degrees, all words are abstractions. What is it about major, positive, serious, and feasible that a reader might not get? And, rather than “let’s do lunch,” the author prefers, “Let’s have lunch together,” thus transforming easy informality into a stilted formality.
The author acknowledges that jargon has its place among those initiated in a particular language community, but he is critical of such when it goes outside the non-initiated audience. Ironically, he says nothing about English grammar books which have a full-suite of jargon babble.
Of course, the author notes all those hyperbolic euphemisms (though he “does” - he doesn’t like using “do” form for emphasis - give a nod to using them in polite society), that go along with sales jobs. That’s just “reality,” and it’s not going to change. The task is not to ban such but to not get snookered by such charlatanism.
What’s left unsaid in many of the examples used is the underlying reason for “junk English,” and what they reveal about human nature. We use polysyllabic words to impress, he says. We use vague words to evade and mask. And how much of our language just reflects the need to conform to our respective community, i.e., if “coordnatorial” is one of those vague bureaucratic words, you will fit in fine. It’s the same for “prioritize,” and “re-energize” (re the latter, the author suggest sticking with “energize” - as if something old happening once is good enough, versus putting new life in an old idea).
I “do” like the author’s take on “community,” which he calls a secret snob word (lexicon elitism), a “trendy” term, “social welfare lingo.” Used loosely, “community” suggests a oneness that covers up substantial differences - in the “brown” community, for example, some are progressive politically but many are not. I also like the book’s take on “professional” which he calls “the most prevalent snob word today….The old days of the white collar and blue collar worker are gone; we now have workers and professionals, and the class distinction is clear when one compares business professionals and industry professionals with maintenance and garment workers.” Finally, finally, finally, someone is picking up the “issues” with this and the whole “working class” terminology: Workers do physical work whereas the professional class ("mentalists"?) sit at desks and make the rules and policies for how physical work is to be done and, also, how culturally (elite) one “is supposed to be.”
The author acknowledges that jargon has its place among those initiated in a particular language community, but he is critical of such when it goes outside the non-initiated audience. Ironically, he says nothing about English grammar books which have a full-suite of jargon babble.
Of course, the author notes all those hyperbolic euphemisms (though he “does” - he doesn’t like using “do” form for emphasis - give a nod to using them in polite society), that go along with sales jobs. That’s just “reality,” and it’s not going to change. The task is not to ban such but to not get snookered by such charlatanism.
What’s left unsaid in many of the examples used is the underlying reason for “junk English,” and what they reveal about human nature. We use polysyllabic words to impress, he says. We use vague words to evade and mask. And how much of our language just reflects the need to conform to our respective community, i.e., if “coordnatorial” is one of those vague bureaucratic words, you will fit in fine. It’s the same for “prioritize,” and “re-energize” (re the latter, the author suggest sticking with “energize” - as if something old happening once is good enough, versus putting new life in an old idea).
I “do” like the author’s take on “community,” which he calls a secret snob word (lexicon elitism), a “trendy” term, “social welfare lingo.” Used loosely, “community” suggests a oneness that covers up substantial differences - in the “brown” community, for example, some are progressive politically but many are not. I also like the book’s take on “professional” which he calls “the most prevalent snob word today….The old days of the white collar and blue collar worker are gone; we now have workers and professionals, and the class distinction is clear when one compares business professionals and industry professionals with maintenance and garment workers.” Finally, finally, finally, someone is picking up the “issues” with this and the whole “working class” terminology: Workers do physical work whereas the professional class ("mentalists"?) sit at desks and make the rules and policies for how physical work is to be done and, also, how culturally (elite) one “is supposed to be.”
April 29, 2020
This book is a fascinating and hilarious and at the same time somewhat melancholy examination of where our language is heading and what our culture has done to it. The "militant grammarians" among us, who daily bemoan the casual butchering of linguistic precision, will gasp with wonder and relief that we are not the only ones who notice these barbarities.
Our second reaction, however, is to realize that though we may think we know our language well (and we probably do, compared to our peers), we don't know it nearly as well as we should, or as well as Ken Smith does. We'll see examples in this book of lexical misdeeds that we ourselves commit on a regular basis, and we'll fret, "How can I continue to call myself a stickler for grammar when my perspicacity is not perfect and complete?"
The third reaction, I think, is depression. Smith is certainly right about Junk English, its origins and its consequences. But who cares? Aside from those of us who pay attention (and we're a precious tiny little minority), accuracy in written and spoken English is declassé. I often feel that advertising, PR propaganda, political reportage, and corporate communications are written largely by morons for other morons, so everyone's satisfied. What is to be done? Smith isn't trying to provide a solution to our language's ills, but his focusing on the problem does raise the question.
My mild criticism of the book consists in Smith's apparent lack of patience with whimsy, colloquialism, and artistic embellishment. Sometimes, when we neglect to use the most economical or efficient word, we do so on purpose -- to use the "au courant" argot of a specific constituency, to dress up a sentence for the simple love of language, or just for fun. Junk English seems to be more about using words and phrases without a thorough understanding of their meaning or implication -- but this book occasionally steps beyond this into written inefficiency.
Writers who are concerned about getting caught themselves in the morass of Junk English, however, should keep a copy of this book around. After you finish a draft, flip through its pages and see if anything you've done is named there.
Our second reaction, however, is to realize that though we may think we know our language well (and we probably do, compared to our peers), we don't know it nearly as well as we should, or as well as Ken Smith does. We'll see examples in this book of lexical misdeeds that we ourselves commit on a regular basis, and we'll fret, "How can I continue to call myself a stickler for grammar when my perspicacity is not perfect and complete?"
The third reaction, I think, is depression. Smith is certainly right about Junk English, its origins and its consequences. But who cares? Aside from those of us who pay attention (and we're a precious tiny little minority), accuracy in written and spoken English is declassé. I often feel that advertising, PR propaganda, political reportage, and corporate communications are written largely by morons for other morons, so everyone's satisfied. What is to be done? Smith isn't trying to provide a solution to our language's ills, but his focusing on the problem does raise the question.
My mild criticism of the book consists in Smith's apparent lack of patience with whimsy, colloquialism, and artistic embellishment. Sometimes, when we neglect to use the most economical or efficient word, we do so on purpose -- to use the "au courant" argot of a specific constituency, to dress up a sentence for the simple love of language, or just for fun. Junk English seems to be more about using words and phrases without a thorough understanding of their meaning or implication -- but this book occasionally steps beyond this into written inefficiency.
Writers who are concerned about getting caught themselves in the morass of Junk English, however, should keep a copy of this book around. After you finish a draft, flip through its pages and see if anything you've done is named there.
March 24, 2024
I enjoyed this. It also took me almost a year to read it, and it is a very short book, so I understand why people are critical of it.
As a person who works in marketing and communications for a small city, I am very aware of the kinds of euphemisms and language alterations this book describes. There are moments where I agree with the author wholeheartedly, like his disdain for the use of capitalization for emphasis, and others where I don't care. (I spend a lot of time arguing with people that we use AP style, and "city" does not get capitalized, and generally they do it anyway.) Junk English was a fun outlet, like kvetching with a coworker, and made me laugh a few times. His biting wit is funny to me. I also have to assume that Ken Smith understands that language changes, and while he can help his readers be more careful in their choice of words, language as a whole is not going back. Much of what he describes, like words whose meaning has been cheapened through overuse, such as "unique," he does seem to realize is not going to change. Unique just doesn't mean one of a kind anymore. We can't undo that.
This book is also interesting as a time capsule of language, because what we are dealing with now is different. Language has been weaponized in the service of fascism and misinformation in our age in a way that it just wasn't when he was writing. We use grammar to try to pick out whether something was written by AI - does this mistake make it more human?
As an observation of the interaction between culture and language, Junk English is thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed Smith's descriptions of "cynic incubators," explaining the way government and marketing misuse of language leads to people being more cynical. There's truth to it. I wouldn't say he got everything right or that it's all still relevant, but if you enjoy thinking about language and culture, it's worth the mental exercise to examine how these things interplay. Still, there are more specific and nuanced books about the relationship between language and culture being written now.
As a person who works in marketing and communications for a small city, I am very aware of the kinds of euphemisms and language alterations this book describes. There are moments where I agree with the author wholeheartedly, like his disdain for the use of capitalization for emphasis, and others where I don't care. (I spend a lot of time arguing with people that we use AP style, and "city" does not get capitalized, and generally they do it anyway.) Junk English was a fun outlet, like kvetching with a coworker, and made me laugh a few times. His biting wit is funny to me. I also have to assume that Ken Smith understands that language changes, and while he can help his readers be more careful in their choice of words, language as a whole is not going back. Much of what he describes, like words whose meaning has been cheapened through overuse, such as "unique," he does seem to realize is not going to change. Unique just doesn't mean one of a kind anymore. We can't undo that.
This book is also interesting as a time capsule of language, because what we are dealing with now is different. Language has been weaponized in the service of fascism and misinformation in our age in a way that it just wasn't when he was writing. We use grammar to try to pick out whether something was written by AI - does this mistake make it more human?
As an observation of the interaction between culture and language, Junk English is thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed Smith's descriptions of "cynic incubators," explaining the way government and marketing misuse of language leads to people being more cynical. There's truth to it. I wouldn't say he got everything right or that it's all still relevant, but if you enjoy thinking about language and culture, it's worth the mental exercise to examine how these things interplay. Still, there are more specific and nuanced books about the relationship between language and culture being written now.
February 28, 2019
A compact guide of what not to do when writing or speaking, especially if you are a politician or salesperson. Some of Smith’s criticisms are aimed at slang, dialect, or jargon. Others are legitimate critiques and circumlocutions that obscure rather than clarify. Arranged alphabetically, with sometimes hilarious examples. Open anywhere and start reading. See entries under Community, Euphemisms, Fat-ass phrases, Hyphen monsters, Jargon gridlock, Machine Language, Palsy-walsy pitches, Secret snob words, Self-help jargon, and most important, Warfare English (such as stand-ins for war as: armed conflict, armed intervention, a military solution, uprising, and use of force). Here are expressions to give copy-editors the giggles. There’s a second edition of this.
February 23, 2025
Enjoyable and concrete. Smith is helpful in challenging you to think critically about how you write. The value of his observations are uneven. Some are very astute and helpful. Some were a bit unnecessarily persnickety. Smith has a tendency to assume that words have a proper, fixed meaning and sometimes is simply objecting to language drift. I think it's fair for the purposes of style to recognize that some language change is unhelpful, but the fact that a word used to be used in a more narrow sense, doesn't necessarily mean that the expanded sense is bad style though it certainly might.
April 15, 2020
Overall entertaining read and made numerous great points about precision and specificity, but is pedantic, snobbish, and dated. I'm a language nerd, but the book focused almost entirely on PR, corporate, and political abuses of language. It entirely neglects counterpoints from legal writing and dialectical variations of English vernacular. Language evolves, especially in light of modern innovations (internet shorthand; emojis), that this author would likely disdain.
July 1, 2019
A mostly no-frills but incisive look at abuses of English in print and conversation. Great examples. Useful as a reference book. He offers a wry comment occasionally but doesn't rise (or attempt to rise) to the humorous levels of Lynne Truss or Patricia T. O'Conner.
June 16, 2019
Many points are borderline pretensiousness, not acknowledging that language is also dependent on the mass. Still, we need more books like this.
September 2, 2019
This book had the potential to be funny and entertaining, but the formatting that Smith chose made it boring instead.
March 16, 2023
(Note-this is effectively a review of both this book and its sequel, Junk English 2, as they are basically the same work, spread across two volumes.)
This gets compared to The Elements of Style a bunch in reviews it seems, but it's closer to the more vitriolic parts of Fowler's Modern English Usage (but less witty). It has a mix of reasonable criticisms of the language produced by businesses, governments, and marketers and so on, and a sort of paranoid fear of the inevitable evolution of English as a language. Probably not particularly useful, because the sort of person who cares enough about language and writing to read this sort of book is already going to be the sort of person who avoids using words like "impactful" or "downsize" or "functionality" or constructs like "grow your business" or use "office" as a verb. He grouses about certain new words (or new usages for words) as if they were all simply replacing perfectly good extant words or usages; but (especially in the sequel to this book) often he'll list multiple potential extant synonyms for the new word, while missing the point that the new word or usage has the connotations of all of those synonyms, and cannot simply be replaced by them. Inevitably, much of the usage he decries has become mainstream and anonymous since this book was published, and some of it would, if used now, be recognizable as poor, dated writing from the time the book came out.
The first book was published in October 2001, and is sort of interesting as a little window into the mindset of an American concerned with the use of language to deceive and misdirect right on the eve of September 11th; the sequel came out in 2004, while the Iraq War was still young, and reflects its time as well, featuring criticism of the famous "Mission Accomplished" banner, and embarrassing concern that the term "conspiracy theory" was being used to denigrate LEGITIMATE INQUIRIES about how the World Trade Center was destroyed. There is a lot of concern about the sort of language that was used in spam email, when spam was still a major problem for email users, and still written by humans. There's concern about the militarization of everyday language, which of course only got worse in the years after the first book was written. There's concern about the use of unclear language to shift or obscure responsibility on the part of government or business, which of course is a concern as old as language itself.
This gets compared to The Elements of Style a bunch in reviews it seems, but it's closer to the more vitriolic parts of Fowler's Modern English Usage (but less witty). It has a mix of reasonable criticisms of the language produced by businesses, governments, and marketers and so on, and a sort of paranoid fear of the inevitable evolution of English as a language. Probably not particularly useful, because the sort of person who cares enough about language and writing to read this sort of book is already going to be the sort of person who avoids using words like "impactful" or "downsize" or "functionality" or constructs like "grow your business" or use "office" as a verb. He grouses about certain new words (or new usages for words) as if they were all simply replacing perfectly good extant words or usages; but (especially in the sequel to this book) often he'll list multiple potential extant synonyms for the new word, while missing the point that the new word or usage has the connotations of all of those synonyms, and cannot simply be replaced by them. Inevitably, much of the usage he decries has become mainstream and anonymous since this book was published, and some of it would, if used now, be recognizable as poor, dated writing from the time the book came out.
The first book was published in October 2001, and is sort of interesting as a little window into the mindset of an American concerned with the use of language to deceive and misdirect right on the eve of September 11th; the sequel came out in 2004, while the Iraq War was still young, and reflects its time as well, featuring criticism of the famous "Mission Accomplished" banner, and embarrassing concern that the term "conspiracy theory" was being used to denigrate LEGITIMATE INQUIRIES about how the World Trade Center was destroyed. There is a lot of concern about the sort of language that was used in spam email, when spam was still a major problem for email users, and still written by humans. There's concern about the militarization of everyday language, which of course only got worse in the years after the first book was written. There's concern about the use of unclear language to shift or obscure responsibility on the part of government or business, which of course is a concern as old as language itself.
December 21, 2007
A pass-along from my mom, I picked this up for a quickie read last night.
"Junk English is like junk food - ingest it long enough and your brain goes soft." - a quote from the introduction to the book. Focusing on business, political and news-release writing, Smith presents hundreds of examples of weasel words, jargon and overused phrases, as well as grammatical abuses such as Parasitical Intensifiers and Hyphen-Monsters. Some of my pet peeves are included: smartize, efforted, and "grow" as a synonym for increase or broaden.
I'll admit to recognizing some of my own habits in this book, especially in the team documentation I'm currently putting together. Even though the book is only 142 pages, it was a bit much to take in all at once; I'd recommend making this a leisurely read, perhaps in combination with other books on language usage.
"Junk English is like junk food - ingest it long enough and your brain goes soft." - a quote from the introduction to the book. Focusing on business, political and news-release writing, Smith presents hundreds of examples of weasel words, jargon and overused phrases, as well as grammatical abuses such as Parasitical Intensifiers and Hyphen-Monsters. Some of my pet peeves are included: smartize, efforted, and "grow" as a synonym for increase or broaden.
I'll admit to recognizing some of my own habits in this book, especially in the team documentation I'm currently putting together. Even though the book is only 142 pages, it was a bit much to take in all at once; I'd recommend making this a leisurely read, perhaps in combination with other books on language usage.
July 20, 2014
Good concept for a book, but the final product seems incomplete. The book is alphabetically organized by entries; the author spends most of the book pointing out euphemisms and the improper (or unseemly) substitution of one word for another. Some of the entries are merely rants and have little or nothing to say about grammar or proper word use.
From several reviews I read, I was expecting witty comments to go along with the entries. I was sorely disappointed. The book is not funny or amusing at all. This is not a book to sit down and enjoy reading. However, it is mildly informative.
If this type of book interests you, it is best used as an addendum to Strunk and White's "Elements of Style".
From several reviews I read, I was expecting witty comments to go along with the entries. I was sorely disappointed. The book is not funny or amusing at all. This is not a book to sit down and enjoy reading. However, it is mildly informative.
If this type of book interests you, it is best used as an addendum to Strunk and White's "Elements of Style".
Read
August 1, 2019Entertaining and somewhat useful, but not a must-read as with his earlier book about educational (?) films, MENTAL HYGIENE. Better than Strunk and White, anyhow. (I HATE Strunk and White!) Interestingly (or maybe not) Smith objects to the phrase "the fact that" and so did they. Of course, the fact that both Strunk and White and Smith have some sort of weird obsession with eliminating this perfectly useful phrase doesn't per se invalidate this book...but compared to MENTAL HYGIENE and his other books, KEN'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE and RAW DEAL--a selection of case histories of famous and obscure Americans who got just what the title says--it's a letdown.
abandoned-attempts
January 3, 2009I usually really enjoy books about the (dismal/deteriorating) state of the English language, but this was just a waste of time. It is a haphazard and random listing of the author's linguistic pet peeves, each of which he names in such a way that the reader has no idea what the category is describing. "Distraction modifiers!" "Mirage words!" "Tiny-type messages!" Whatever. I quit after about 30 pages.
July 13, 2015
- from the jacket: "With hundreds of examples pulled from everyday life, Junk English shows how our language is becoming so pliable and flabby that the more we read and hear, the less we actually know...from the mindless jargon, euphemisms and 'weasel words', to empty rhetoric such as 'quality of life'.."
- wonderfully fun - for a word-lover such as myself
- easily digested in bite-sized chunks (I read it over a few weeks, a few pages at a time.)
- wonderfully fun - for a word-lover such as myself
- easily digested in bite-sized chunks (I read it over a few weeks, a few pages at a time.)
August 16, 2011
Early morning car ride reading that I enjoyed quite a bit.
I am definitely guilty of some of the crimes this book so scathingly wrote about.
In fact, the use of adverbs in that above line probably fall under one of the many categories of unacceptable writing.
Oh my. I guess I haven't learned.
I am definitely guilty of some of the crimes this book so scathingly wrote about.
In fact, the use of adverbs in that above line probably fall under one of the many categories of unacceptable writing.
Oh my. I guess I haven't learned.
January 31, 2014
If you want to know about the doublespeak garblish, that is espoused to you by the media, the military and the politico's this is a good place to start.
So be nice to one another and never look away because if you know what your problems are you can do something about them.
So be nice to one another and never look away because if you know what your problems are you can do something about them.
February 22, 2015
Raised excellent points about brevity, and explicated some common hype that dupes folks. Got me thinking about other usages that we all let slide by from time to time. Definitely worth a second read to gain more insights.
January 1, 2008
Seemed kind of nit picky. I understand being disturbed by the misuse of the English language, but the author seemed offended by the fact that language changes over time.
January 3, 2008
Ken Smith came to one of our first Word Nerds meetings! My husband and I actually have two signed copies.
August 21, 2008
More sweeping generalizations and hypocritical absolutes than insights.
October 8, 2008
I thought this would be a humorous romp through the world of bad language a la Lynn Truss, but it's a boring dictionary, a catalog of offenses. Not very funny and a chore to read.
November 17, 2016
This rode the line between making editing recommendations and bitching about advertising copy, leaning more into the complaints. It's fast and interesting, but I can't say I liked it.
November 28, 2016
I am afraid of writing a review of this book because I may use junk English and the author will get upset.
April 26, 2019
An A-to-Z listing of some of the most obnoxious misuses of English, with vivid definitions and examples. If nothing else shames you into cleaning up your writing and your vocabulary, this will.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews