Dialogue: Let's clobber the passionate and have a quality reform

Many overused words and phrases rate among life's great survivors. This year provided a fine array, writes JENNY LYNCH*.

Gordon McLauchlan once famously dubbed New Zealanders the passionless people. He may have been right at the time. But not any more.

These days passions run high in Godzone. We are passionate about our jobs, our hobbies, our favourite holiday spots, our heroes, our causes. Everything from the All Blacks to selling carpets inspires Kiwi passion. In fact, passionate must take the prize as the most overused - and thus devalued - word of this year.

Plenty of others qualify for similar prizes. Words and expressions that should be consigned to the rubbish bin.

Take "the reality is". This cunning little phrase, often employed to give opinion the appearance of fact (and, thus, particularly beloved of politicians), is near the top of the list, along with that equally cunning and constantly misused political favourite, "reforms". Health system reforms? Changes, at best. But accuracy doesn't always have the same persuasive value - as politicians well know.

Speaking of medical matters, how is it we never go to our doctors any more? Instead, we tend to "access medical services". Just as we access social, financial and just about any other service you could name. We also access information, and products ranging from cosmetics to seeds for the gardens. New Zealanders are on an accessing binge.

It is all part of the desire to impress. Long-winded expressions, after all, make us sound more important. Consequently, we "sign off" instead of sign. We have "one-on-one" meetings at which we resolve to "keep everyone in the loop" while awaiting the "outcomes" and "action points" of a particular key learning.

We are increasingly reluctant to decide anything. Instead, we "take a decision". (Take it where, you might ask?) Stranger still, we "take a conscious decision". This implies we're capable of making unconscious decisions presumably while asleep, under hypnosis or knocked out on the operating table.

Mystics may receive inspiration and solve problems while in a state of trance, but the vast majority of us operate on a more mundane level - which, considering New Zealanders' waning interest in religion, makes it surprising we should be so obsessed with souls.

No longer are couples simply husband and wife, loving partners or even political partners - they're "soulmates". Just check the women's magazines. Soulmates all over the place. A celebrity wedding is a union of soulmates. A bereavement becomes the loss of one's soulmate. An anniversary provides an opportunity for soulmates to celebrate. You can even eat a soulmate. I have seen apples and pears described as culinary soulmates.

But with the number of soulmates (of the human variety) who eventually part company it would seem that soulmateship is no more enduring than any other sort. But that could be because soulmates are too busy with their jobs and careers to spend sufficient "quality time" together.

Quality time. Now there's a poser. What's the difference between quality time and - well - just time? Could the man who makes a "conscious effort" (see conscious decision) to set aside an hour each night for quality time with his children be suggesting that time spent on other activities is somehow below par? Whatever the answer, this tired expression is well past its use-by date.

Other hackneyed phrases that should have disappeared years ago but have managed to hang on include that old cornball, "grass-roots level".

Political and business leaders continue to engage in "full and frank discussions" and "meaningful dialogue".

Then there's our love affair with "icons". The growing tendency to attach iconic status to anything vaguely representative of Kiwiana plays fast and loose with the word and moves it perilously near cliche territory. The All Black jersey, Buzzy Bee, Phar Lap and hokey pokey ice-cream are all very well. But School Certificate? It is doubtful whether generations of fifth-formers would classify the defunct exam as an object of love, admiration or reverence.

Mind you, cliches are not always avoidable. Consider real-estate advertisements. Cliche-ridden? You bet. But while we might criticise some agents for their enthusiastic use of superlatives at the top end of the market, think of the difficulties of those faced with selling duds.

So ... how do you inspire interest in a rundown house with peeling paint, broken front steps and doggy doos on the lawn? You talk in terms of starters, do-ups, potential, and handyman's delight.

Television and radio test-match cricket commentators can be faced with similar challenges. With batsmen on a go-slow and runs at a premium it must be the devil's own job to inject life into proceedings. Thus well-worn phrases can be forgiven.

But one-dayers are a different story. So perhaps next year can mark the last of "in the context of the game" (whatever that means), "we've got a game on our hands", and "it's what one-day cricket is all about".

And while on the subject of cricket I've just thought up the sentence from hell.

The reality is that cricket is not everyone's cup of tea, so people who are passionate about our summer icon sport, but whose soulmates don't share that passion, should first access a cricketing manual then take a conscious decision to spend quality time engaged in meaningful dialogue on a one-on-one basis with said soulmate to explain what one-day cricket is all about.

Oh dear, I've left out, sign off on and grass-roots level.

I'll just have to resort to another overused (but wholly satisfying) word. Bugger.

* Jenny Lynch is an Auckland writer.