Bluster, braggadocio, misstatements, lies, deflections, words that aren’t words and mixed and mangled metaphors have littered the messages with which we’ve been bombarded.
One word stands out as having been flung around the most: “disaster.”
Especially in the past three months, this word has been tossed around more haphazardly than dirty clothes in a dorm room. It’s been so overused that it’s lost its meaning.
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The English language offers a multitude of alternatives to “disaster” and “disastrous.” In the interest of keeping our language fresh and varying our words, here are several dozen substitutions:
1. adversity
2. affliction
3. bane
4. bitter pill
5. blight
6. breakdown
7. break up
8. cataclysm
9. calamity
10. catastrophe
11. collapse
12. crash
13. crushing
14. debacle
15. defeat
16. depression
17. destructive
18. disheartening
19. dire
20. downfall
21. eruption
22. failure
23. farce
24. fiasco
25. flop
26. frightful
27. hardship
28. horrendous
29. mess
30. misery
31. mishap
32. misadventure
33. misfortune
34. pathetic
35. ravaging
36. reverse
37. ruination
38. ruinous
39. setback
40. shambles
41. shock
42. slip
43. staggering blow
44. strife
45. tragedy
46. trouble
47. undoing
48. upheaval
49. washout
50. wrack and ruin
What terms would you add to the list, PR Daily readers?
Laura Hale Brockway is writer and editor from Austin, Texas. Read more of her work on PR Daily and at Impertinent Remarks.
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