Boots on the ground – When I hear this hackneyed tripe, I imagine a poor man’s Don Draper musing potential slogans:

“Most conflicts can be solved with our new product – Boots on the Ground. Now available in size 12.”

Presumably enemy soldiers are in awe of a bunch footwear parachuted from above, and lay down their arms surrendering. Why use this phrase? Taken literally as I’ve lampooned above, it makes no sense. Of course, they mean ground troops or infantrymen. Why invent this mouthful pleonasm, when the former will do? Be more pithy next time.

Bums on seats – Similar to it’s cousin above, this neologism similarly grinds my gears. “Our revenue will go up with more bums on seats.” Says a charlatan train company operator who is lining their pockets with tax payer funded subsidies. More redundancy in wording here. Do people who invariably stand on the train due to lack of seating get to travel for free? No, the season ticket costs over the odds for the privilege to stand. Do disembodied arses generate profit? No. Say passengers, customers or people you morons.

Woke – Yes I know what ‘woke’ means, this proves my street smarts, would that it were. This slang seems to be everywhere and it regrettably seems to have crossed the Atlantic too. If you’re unfamiliar, it means someone is up to date on social and political issues. Do you know what I call being ‘woke’? Awake Not being a fucking idiot. I’ve been following politics for more than 15 years. I imagine that people who use this word may have lost attention so I’ll put it into a form they’ll understand:

You think being woke is your ally? You merely adopted being woke after Brexit and Trump. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see fake news until I was already a cynic, by then it was nothing to me but gibberish written by Russian bots!

PS blame Stephen Fry for the sesquipedalian long words.