Wednesday 1 October 2008

Memewatch

First in an occasional series (knowing me, *very* occasional) tracking once-good phrases as they are abused in modern language.

Today Nick Clegg said that "We are in the eye of an economic storm".

The eye of a storm features mostly calm weather, as any fool knows. I don't think the Dow sliding 5% and the FTSE circling 4800 really counts as "calm", more like "terrifying". Even if you don't believe in the "financial crisis" it must still be at least "a bit worrying".

See also "more heat than light", desperately overused by Lib Dem bloggers this year. Anyone have any other nominations?

1 comment:

Matthew said...

Re: 'eye of the storm' - I thought the same thing when I heard it used recently about the current economic situation. Pretty certain I heard it from a journalist, though. I remember thinking at the time that the eye of the storm would be a great place to be because it's the bit in the middle that's removed from the destructive bit!