Communications expert calls for ‘violent’ phrases to be phased out

An American communications expert is calling for a raft of common phrases to be phased out because they’re violent.

Californian communications director Anna Taylor wants people to stop using expressions like “pull the trigger” “jump the gun”, “bite the bullet” and “kill two birds with one stone”.

But linguistics lecturer at the Australian National University, Dr Rosey Billington, says “often people don’t even twig the literal elements” of common expressions.

Press PLAY below to hear why Dr Billings doesn’t think phasing out the phrases will have an impact

“The US has a massive problem with gun violence. I can understand why there might be people looking for ways to kind of make this a bit less present in everyday conversation,” she told Neil Mitchell.

“But it’s not really going to change violent behaviour and it’s probably not going to change the way people use these terms which they don’t necessarily think of as violent.”