Comments: Those Phrases

Reaction has begun coming in to the more or less lighthearted Rifftides posting about annoying, overused phrases. Here's a note from Bill Holman.

Doug,

Your response to "if you will' is the same as mine. Nancy is still taken aback when, while we're watching TV, I blurt "I won't!".

How about "as we speak"? (seems to be fading)

Here's one from Gene Lees.

"If you will" is used by every reporter and anchor I can think of. And in the case of Wolf Blitzer's show, as much as five or six times in an hour.

Literally, as I heard today in a story about the floods back east: "People were walking literally up to their waist in water." Disentangle that.

Hopefully, and its cousins such as thankfully, as in "Thankfully no one was hurt."

If it was up to me . . . .

I wish they would have . . . .

From Bill Kirchner:

Words Frequently Misused By Otherwise Literate Persons:

1) disinterested (when they really mean uninterested);

2) compliment (when they really mean complement);

3) masterful (when they really mean masterly).