"Basic", "in the end" ... These abuses of language that we use (too) often

Hard to get rid of it.

We hear a word, an expression, and presto!

Impossible not to spill them out in each of our sentences.

While it's nice to have a favorite word or two, it's best to use them wisely.

The drafting returns to these few formulas, faulty or awkward, that we hear all the time.

● In the end

"I didn't want to go to the cinema at all yesterday, in the end, I was happy"

,

"I think that in the end, I'm not going to go out tonight"

,

"In the end, she left without say goodbye ”

.

Few of the formulas spread with such fulgurance.

Extremely popular, this one remains nonetheless grammatically faulty.

Final

is an adjective which cannot be used as a noun in this case.

Let's get rid of this linguistic parasite for good, and prefer to use

“finally”

,

“to finish”

,

“at the end”

, or

“in the last place”

.

● Basic, basic

“Basically, I'm a nice person.

But we must not overdo it ”

,

“ Basically, he studied the violin ”

.

The formula is unfortunate.

Like its

"basic"

variant

, they have no place in this context.

Let us recall, enlightened by the academic lights, that the prepositive phrase

"at the base"

, in the sense

"at the origin of"

, designates what a thing rests on, or what serves as a starting point.

It is used in sentences like:

"At the base of all success, there is a lot of work"

, in accordance with the meaning of the word in the sense of the name

"base"

.

Let us eradicate these two undesirable ones from our remarks, and prefer to say:

"First of all, I am a nice person"

, or else

"He first studied the violin"

.

● Issue

"What you are telling me is problematic"

,

"She wrote a study on the problem of drinking water management"

.

The word abounds in the public space.

Wrongly.

As an adjective used as a feminine noun, (

one

or

the

problematic), the word

"belongs to the didactic language"

, remind the wise men.

Our daily life, with its share of domestic chores and hardships, no matter how exciting, is not enough to use this term.

It is reserved for

"scholarly or scientific research calling, on a given subject, a theoretical perspective"

.

● Be in charge of, be able to

"He is in charge of this file"

,

"I am not able to act under these conditions"

.

These formulas are nice.

But only their letters are French.

Modeled on English, just like their cousin

"to be in charge of"

, they are used, wrongly, in place of

"to have the charge of" or "to be in charge of"

● Oh no, at all!

"Do you have a tradition wand left, please?"

Answer:

"Oh no, at all!"

What fly bites us?

In this formula, which proliferates everywhere, all generations combined, one word is sorely lacking.

Where has the

“pas”

, the flagship of French negation,

gone

?

If the expression does dot a few literary texts here and there, let us not abuse the ellipse, like any good thing.