Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Buzz factor: Annoyed by catch phrases? Chill out.

It's not that expressions don't get old and go out of fashion. Slang and catch phrases are the shooting stars and comets of the language firmament, shining brighter and moving faster than the (relatively) fixed stars of usage. But like any other feature of language, they come and go according to our collective will, not a ruling from on high. So the rush to declare phrases obsolete looks like a sign of insecurity, as if the commenters are competing to beat one another to the punch: Who'll be first to say that "under the bus" is, like, so over, and thus show he's ahead of the pack?