Talking in cliches. We have the most economic, resonant and versatile language in the world, yet so many people use it in a dull and boring way.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
The question
What trait do you most dislike in other people?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Talking in cliches. We have the most economic, resonant and versatile language in the world, yet so many people use it in a dull and boring way.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
Bullying, whether face to face or online.
Amid so much blatant cruelty in our political situation, such shocking indifference to the lives & welfare of those living at the margins of an affluent society, I think it must be this institutionalized cruelty, & the hypocrisy that surrounds it. “Making America great again”—for whom? Wealthy white people? The word “deplore” is particularly relevant here.
Racism and bigotry.
Guys who use the word “snot.”
We live in a fearful age: Brexit, Covid, global warming, cancel culture, war in Ukraine. Add in pancreatic cancer and you find me in an advanced and complex state of anxiety.
A cream suit from Chanel that cost almost as much as a small car.
Like coming home.
Working as the assistant to an agony aunt on a women’s magazine. When we didn’t get enough heartbreaking letters, we made them up.
When I first met Richard, in 1992, on a British Council writers’ tour of Adelaide. We were drinking Australian lager while parakeets squawked rudely in the neighbourhood gumtrees.
The film of Restoration. A beautiful cast. An award-winning designer. A massive budget. A dog’s dinner.
Jack Whitehall, Joyce Carol Oates, Adam Kay, Kazuo Ishiguro, Anne Enright, Maggie O'Farrell
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