Does being annoyed with the word “opined” make me a curmudgeon? Since I’ve probably made every writing mistake known to man, I hate to be a nit-picker. I feel like a raging hypocrite every time I share my preferences or pet peeves in regard to writing.
That said, having found this wretched word drooling over two theological blog posts in my Google Reader feed over the last 24 hours (Exhibit A, Exhibit B), and so I must register a complaint.
Is the usage of this vile world mainly limited to the world of theological discourse? The reason I ask is that out of all usages in my Google Reader in the last year, only one wasn’t in a theological posting.
In case anyone wants to know why “opined” has become a thorn to my reading eyes…
- It looks ugly.
- It has a horrid sound, which is probably why people don’t say the word as often as they write it. I bet that very few people who read their writing out loud regularly use it. It is choppy and most readers will momentarily stumble on it.
- As one writing guide has noted, it is outlandish and artificial. There are plethora of words that convey the same shades of meaning in various contexts but look better, sound better, and are far more ordinary (such as”shared”, “suggested”, “said”, “stated”, “expressed”, or “wrote”). By all means use a more boring word!
- It is used erratically. For example, it is usually used in reference to what others do, but rarely to what the person writing does. The awkwardness of saying “I opine” further outlines the outlandishness of the word in general.
Here’s to my hopes that “opined” and “opine” become extinct. Does anyone agree with me?
I agree! Opined is the word of the moment to (ala article-wide word “upgrades” via thesaurus) replace “said”, and it’s almost exclusively ab/used in web-only articles.
Using opine/d is lazy writing and broadcasts a writer’s insecurity about and article’s content. Since so many online authors work without proper copy editors, styling choices can easily fall victim to trends which appear to “class-up” a text.
I opine that we’ll see more of these hipster-like “discoveries” of out-of-use words in coming years, as younger non-writers choose to publish collections of words they deem article-worthy. Today’s 20-somethings (the likely offending copywriters) are asked to communicate thoughts using compelling and “smart” texts that must compete with the torrents of mindless shorts messages and poorly shot photos and video. It’s amazing the quality is not yet worse!
(And, yes; we have early-onset curmudgeonliness)
Mildly interesting data from Google shows a steady increase in recorded ab/use in online news reports between 2008 and 2010; ab/use has levelled off since. (The sharp increase at the beginning of 2008 seems to be an artefact of Google’s data sampling changing, as it appears in many other queries.)
Google Trends: opined