Two language conventions I detest

1. Scare quotes. Yeah, I know they're there to set off the discourse you would reject or want to parody, but they're overused, and there's something just so timid, weak, frumpy, and middlebrow about them. I think a lot of people use them in a lazy way, as if to say, "That's not the word I would have used..." How about instead, you just use the word you would have used, mmkay? Maybe we could do some experimentation with setting off the discourse we would reject, perhaps with the use of the more dismissive strikethrough. With desktop publishing affordances nowadays, why not?

2. The word writings. No, no. Writing is not a count noun, or shouldn't be, anyway: Gee whiz, I did three writings yesterday! Even if you don't want to commit to a genre by substituting the word essays, or poems, plays, stories, or papers, writing -- the singular -- will do just fine. Observe: I was disturbed by his writing. You can use it as a collective noun without losing the meaning, and it sounds far less awkward.