Many, but not all, of these come from those gasbags in Washington. Most of these seem to exist for no other reason that the speaker loving the sound of his/her own voice. I could live happily ever after if I never heard again:
- Transparency, transparent – this should need no explanation.
- Went missing – why are we now using two words when one (“disappeared”) was perfectly capable of doing the job?
- As early as… – this is a favorite of newscasters. It doesn’t matter how long an event takes, i.e., someone can be on death row for years and years, yet some newscaster will inevitably say “Joe Prisoner now faces execution as early as….” Why not just say, “Joe faces execution Tuesday”?
- Out of an abundance of caution – translation: “So we don’t get sued.”
- Person of interest – I think the police use this when they can’t yet call someone a suspect but they want us to know they aren’t complete bozos and haven’t overlooked the obvious person. (Also see, Out of an abundance of caution.)
- The bulk of the people – people aren’t bulk, mail is. Again, more words when we could just say “most people.”
- Star – as in, “Dancing With the Stars,” reality star – has anyone other than these people’s parents ever heard of them??