Look, we hate pissing all over someone else’s linguistics work, especially when they’re pointing 0ut an overused and subsequently undervalued word. Frequent readers of this site may be familiar with my own work in this field, “Cleaning Out the Language Gutters.”
And that’s not to say that John Blake of CNN wasn’t on the right path, but it’s hard to argue why a word is frequently used in inappropriate situations since he never bothered to define that word.
So, congratulations, John: from your hamfisted examples of Barack Obama using the word, to quotes from jackoffs realizing their “problem” and an O.J. Simpson reference, you absolutely dropped the ball on this one.