13 Turns of Phrase That You Should Never Use in a Blog Post (or Anywhere Else) Again

Content Marketing

Scott Baradell

Published: Sep 24, 2007

Last Updated: Jul 29, 2018

I love Google. Because of Google, we don't even have to argue why the following turns of phrase are trite; the number of search results for each of these overused word combinations proves the point for us.

So please, never again write a speech, blog post or op-ed piece containing the following words or phrases:

1. "despite, or perhaps because of"

2. "the [blank] effect"

3. "a perfect storm"

4. "wardrobe malfunction"

5. "threw up in my mouth a little"

6. "that's hot" (it's trademarked anyway, right?)

7. "not that there's anything wrong with that" (this is going to be a tough one for us)

8. "not so much"

9. "my bad" (this has been a long time coming)

10. "bling"

11. "keeping it real"

12. "at the end of the day" (the most overused phrase of 2006, officially)

13. "[blank] is the new [blank]"

Thank you.

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About the Author

Scott Baradell

Trust expert Scott Baradell is CEO and founder of Idea Grove. Idea Grove helps its clients secure trust at scale through its unique Grow With TRUST approach. Scott is an established authority on trust and editor of the online publication Trust Signals, as well as author of the upcoming book Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World. Idea Grove celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2020, earning honors including the 2020 Pegasus Award for Small Agency of the Year, being named a Top 200 B2B service provider by Clutch, and ranking in the top 25 tech agencies in the U.S. by O'Dwyer's. Scott has an Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) from the Public Relations Society of America and speaks on PR and marketing topics at industry events nationwide.

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