Taking out the trash

My pet peeve of the day: people who say "taken out" or "take X out".

As in "we should go in there and just take Saddam out".
Or "we should take out Iran's nuclear facilities".

It's a euphemism. The word you are looking for is "kill". "Kill" or "murder" or possibly "assasinate" or otherwise "bomb", "blow up", "destroy" or "demolish".

Prime ministers say it, journalists say it, presidential candidates say it, it's driving me nuts! It makes everyone sound like they want to be in some Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

See? If I didn't have this blog, I wouldn't be able to share this emotion with anyone, and I would have just kept it bottled up inside me, where it would fester and grow green and one day I would be sitting in some church tower with a sniper rifle taking out collateral damage with surgically precise friendly fire.