Closely related to my complaint the other day about the horrible overuse of "in a word"..... Just as every summary in Chinglish begins with "in a word", so the the final item in any list is introduced by "Last but not the least..."
The Chinese language relies so heavily on the use of stock phrases that people here seem to have no concept of the tedium or irritation - or just clunkiness - which this habit produces in English; they seem to have no concept of the overuse of a cliché; in fact, they seem to have no recognition even of the concept of a cliché.
And it wouldn't be quite so bad if they could at least get the phrase right: 'last but not least.....' That superfluous article really grates on me.
But really, people, it's just much better not to use this phrase at all. It is another of the unmistakable markers of Chinglish.
3 comments:
My particular pet hate phrase was "...and so on." I encountered this both in speech and writing on occasions too numerous to mention, despite my best efforts to rid students of the habit.
Hmmm, that one has never really struck me. Perhaps it's a peculiar local vice.
I am regularly bugged in writing by and etc. - although this is an error which is not unknown amongst native speakers either.
I was told the other day that there is an expression in Chinese for "an overused cliché, but I can't now remember what it is.
Must ask the Weeble...
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