Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
With all of these overused and hyperbolic words, I tend to think their presence proves the inverse. In other words, if you call it unputdownable, it ain't.
There are a lot of other words like that; world-class is an example. You frequently see a statement along the lines of, "Peoria is a world-class city." Well, if not Peoria, a city like Boston. It's not. And the proof is that you never, ever see "New York is a world-class city" or "London is a world-class city" or "Tokyo is a world-class city." If you have to tell people something that is self-evident when accurate, then you flag the lie.
It bothers me most when a useful word is denatured through overuse. "Iconic," I'm looking at you. So very many things, trivial, silly, pedestrian, are described as "iconic" these days that it can no longer be used to describe something that truly has that status without trivializing it.
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What else is a turn off in a book description is when the book is described to be like some other author's book(s).