The Atlantic’s fantastic interview on teaching, writing and reading with Stephen King is well worth reading in full. “It’s such a horrible idea to try teaching Moby-Dick or Dubliners to high school juniors. Even the bright ones lose heart. But it’s good to make them reach a little. They’ve got to see there are brighter literary worlds than Twilight. Reading good fiction is like making the jump from masturbation to sex … ”.

But perhaps the most interesting part is where teacher and writer Jessica Lahey wrangles out of King what his most irritating phrases of the moment are. The author had, in his memoir and writers’ manual On Writing, previously laid down the following laws: “I believe that anyone using the phrase ‘That’s so cool’ should have to stand in the corner and that those using the far more odious phrases ‘at this point in time’ and ‘at the end of the day’ should be sent to bed without supper”, also condemning passive verbs and adverbs.

Naming her own most irksome new phrase as “on accident” – and I’m slightly bemused as to how to use this one, so can happily state I’ve not sinned here – Lahey asked King if he had any additions to this list. “’Some people say’, or ‘Many believe,’ or ‘The consensus is’. That kind of lazy attribution makes me want to kick something. Also, IMHO, YOLO, and LOL,” said the novelist.

As someone who will type out tomorrow and yesterday in full in a text message no matter the rush, and who has never knowingly written Happy Xmas (until just now, and it is making my skin twitch), I know I’m not guilty of the latter. The former – yes, they’re annoying and lazy, and I hope I’ve never used them. A quick search of my email doesn’t throw anything up. I hope I’m safe.

That’s not the case for my own most irritating word/phrase of the moment: brainchild. I have used it in the past, on a few occasions, and I’m cringing to see it. What a terrible mutant hybrid of a word – why not just say “idea”? Why does it have to be the child of a brain? I vow, here and now, never to let it darken my keyboard again. Brainchildren: be gone.

Comfort me, please, with your own moments of linguistic shame – and your current most-hated turns of phrase. And comfort yourselves with King’s citation of WF Harvey’s fabulous short story August Heat as one of the “read-alouds” he used to choose for classes when teaching English literature. “By the time I reached the last line – ’The heat is enough to drive a man mad’ – you could hear a pin drop,” says the author. It’s one of my favourites too. Try it.