Not all bad words are profanities and vulgarities. There are some words that, although they are perfectly respectable to some people, quite frankly offend me. As a prime example, let's use the word empowered.
Empower was supposed to be a touchy feely, make me feel good word that was used by management and political types. I suppose it was inspired by John Lennon's Power to the People. But what does it really mean? I guess that the reigning power structure (politicians and managers) give up some of their power to those they rule over or manage. They're going to lower themselves to your level a little by raising you to their level a little. Isn't this some kind of back handed compliment? If some one says they want to empower you, it's likely that they want to dump some of their responsibilities on you. It also means that you're in some kind of subservient position to them. I don't want anyone to empower me because I don't want to be subservient to anyone.
The feminist revision of English also is bothersome. Really, it's okay to refer to the family of man as mankind. Is mankind really that offensive? Most languages have some kind of gender unspecific pronouns and in English, we use the masculine pronouns as generic. I wonder if the French or Spanish feminists will take on a similar project for their languages, where every noun is either feminine or masculine. Is it offensive to them that power (pouvoir) or business (affaires) should be masculine while table and pen are feminine? Pride cometh before the fall.
Have your ever heard of anyone experiencing good success? Probably you have but good and success are redundant. I haven't heard anyone reporting bad success. I think when people say good success they really mean a lot of success or very successful.
The king of nasty words has to be proactive. What they holy heck does proactive mean? I know what active is, is proactive different than that? The opposite of active is inactive. Is the opposite of proactive proinactive? You can be activated, reactivated and deactivated. Can you be de-proactivated? Or is that pro-deactivated? Do any of these words make any kind of sense at all?
Share is a perfectly good word but lately I cringe when I hear it. Sharing is okay if it refers to time or property but more and more it's being used in conjunction with (shudder) experiences. And (shriek!) feelings! Rarely is one invited to share their thoughts! I learned everything I needed to know about sharing in kindergarten, e.g. you only share the things you don't care about.
Is our use of eXtreme getting extreme?
Should I just shut up and go away? Okay...