Incredibly annoying
Creative Commons image of Elvis Presley Isn’t it incredible, the number of times “incredibly” is used in conversation and written communication. It featured numberous times in the UK leadership debate on July 17, but we don’t have to go that high (or should I say low) for examples. In the background as I write is the peerless quiz Pointless , where the host Alexander Armstrong has just told a contestant that her description of her rather ordinary job is “incredible”. Incredible and incredibly mean “impossible or difficult to believe”. Think of the claims that Elvis is alive and working in a chip shop in Birmingham. I know you are going to say, come on Angela, people say “amazing” all the time when they are not actually amazed but just being polite. So it’s not just the hyperbole I am criticising, but the crushing frequency with which it inappropriately pops up. We turn to the Financial Times …”the departing prime minister is now incredibly unpopular”. Does th...