LANGUAGE WATCH : Wrong Stuff

In a language as precise as English, it is distressing to hear vacuous words used when economy of thought governs the tongue. We have in mind the word stuff , which has replaced things as the empty cliche of choice. Listen to people talk--in shopping malls, news interviews, even college classrooms--and you will hear many sentences punctuated with “and stuff” or “stuff like that.”

On a recent hike in Northern California, we asked a young couple what lay ahead on the trail. The man responded that we would find “a waterfall and stuff.” We indeed found a splendid waterfall, but no stuff at all. Inevitably, advertisers have latched onto stuff. The makers of Snapple say their beverages are “made from the best stuff on Earth.” Perhaps tea, fruit, sugar, water? What on Earth does stuff taste like?

Stuff as a term for the undefinable is not entirely new. A generation ago, “the right stuff” came to refer to the skills and courage of fighter pilots and astronauts. Last week, Pedro Martinez of the Montreal Expos rightly was said to have had “good stuff” in pitching nine perfect innings.

Our complaint is that now the word has been diluted for use whenever the speaker or writer does not know what he or she really means. A professor we know says that even graduate students routinely end sentences in research papers with “and stuff” when they run out of ideas.

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines stuff as “worthless or foolish ideas, talk, or writing.” Enough said.