Tuck Into!

You know, there’s certain overused words and phrases that just annoy the hell out of me. So much that a pal and I, we compiled a list, but as the licensing rights to that list are tied up in litigation that has been compared to the various lawsuits preventing the 60s “Batman” TV series to be released on DVD, I’m unable to reproduce it here. (Meanwhile, both of our attorneys are getting richer.)

But I’ve another pal, and she’s annoyed by some other words and phrases, and the only one I can think of right now is “chops,” most often following not “pork” (which wouldn’t annoy anyone) but “acting.” It’s such a lazy way of writing. Show off one’s acting chops, display her acting chops, demonstrates his acting chops, etc., etc.! Dear God, stop it! Stop it you lazy writers! Right now, as I type this, there’s 217 matches in Google News for articles using the phrase “acting chops” each one more awful than the last.

In fact, I want you on board with this, too, and what better way than to list the first 9 examples from that first page of results from the aforementioned Google News search?  (And this is just Google News, by the way! Can you imagine if I had just done it in regular Google? Christ!)

• Craig Price helps students find and hone their acting chops
• Forest Ridge Academy students show off their acting chops
• Looking like the aging Callas at first one wonders where are the acting chops that Daly has shown in the past
• Leo Howard shows off martial arts skills, acting chops, in Kickin’ It
• Justin Bieber Nabs 2011 Teen Choice Nod For His Acting Chops!
• By the year 2000 Renee Zellweger had proven her acting chops in both drama and comedy
• Jeff Gordon gets to show off his acting chops in “Road Trip to the Race Track” a new video campaign for his sponsor
• Liz had hoped to exercise her villainous acting chops on the updated version of Wonder Woman
• However, the British model showed off her acting chops and contributed to important phases of the Transformer’s plot

See? Now you’re as irritated about that as I am. Good.  Good. And you’re right to be angry about that.

Now I need you on board for the latest stupid cliché:

“Tucks Into.”

God, how I hate it. Have you heard it? Instead of just eating something, they’re now “tucking into” it. These days, you don’t justeat a Hot Pocket, oh no, God forbid, no – you “tuck into” a Hot Pocket. (Or in some cases, a three-for-a-dollar Tina’s Burrito.) Is this the most idiotic thing you’ve heard? Yes!

Some examples to boil your blood:

• Michelle Obama tucks into fat cakes and French fries on trip to Botswana
• Danny Wallace tucks into breakfast
• Pull up a wharf-side table, or a sleek bar stool, and tuck into some classy bistro food on the waterfront
• Tuck into some blood pudding. [This example is doubly offensive.]
• The average British family lives in a semi-detached house, owns a silver Ford Focus and tucks into spaghetti bolognese once a week.
• Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kim Richards tucks into French fries on bikini break in Hawaii
• Back off – this is my dinner! Praying mantis tucks into a lizard twice its size!
• Hannah tucks into fresh fruit at Orchard Grove Primary School in Blackburn South
• Olympic kayak champ Adam Van Koeverden tucks into a hearty breakfast after a long morning on the water in Toronto
• Shane D Gage Te Huia tucks into his toast at the Kawhia Primary School breakfast club
• Helen Wood tucks into a full Irish breakfast

Now you might be saying, “Well, Ted, those examples all sound very British, and what do you have against the British? Why, just yesterday, you went after recently knighted graffiti artist Sir Banksy!”

Well, the internet has made the whole world so much smaller that your hackneyed little British phrases are starting to be embraced over here in the goddamn US of A, and we are not going to stand for it. It’s enough that Wikipedia insists on using the ridiculous British spelling for everything when we all know it’s loser Americans with too much time on their hands who are doing most of the writing and editing on that site.

And speaking of Wikipedia, I need to go change a few hundred “colours,” “neighbours,” “honours,” and “labours,” and by Christ, this time they better stay changed!

Posted by Ted on August 5, 2011, 9:00 AM.