“Tireless” is tired, tireless

Geoff Dyer, writing for the NY Times Book Review, kvetches about the excessive use of the word “tireless”:

Like a tired person trying to get to sleep who is kept awake by sounds from the street that he or she has for years scarcely noticed, I found that the word had become suddenly unignorable. …

I was curious to see if there were examples of people using “tireless” in such a way as to make it seem less tired. Well, if there are I haven’t found them. It is so thoroughly used up, tired and worn out that no one seems able to bring it back from the dead — and yet, by drawing deep on its own essence, it remains absolutely tireless in its capacity to survive, like a verbal equivalent of the undead.

Next Time, Try ‘Unflagging’ | NYTimes.com (thx MR)

February 22, 2012