No, it’s not iconic.

It’s just famous. It might be symbolic. Or it might just simply be readily recognised.  We might agree that double-decker buses or red telephone boxes are iconic. To tourists, they signify London

The Tower of Pisa or the London Eye, though, don’t really signify anything but themselves. So let’s stop calling them, and anything else well-known, easily-recognised or just momentarily high-profile, iconic. Famous will do, and is probably more than most of them deserve.

It’s not what you expect. It’s surprising.

Except, nobody would say that. They’d say it’s counter-intuitive. Over and over again. All the time. Nothing surprises me any more. Just about everything is counter-intuitive.

Don’t think about it. Do it.

While we’re at it, let’s stop re-imagining things. The upstart film director has not re-imagined The Taming of the Shrew. He just directed it a different way. The twittish architect has not re-imagined the public space. He just designed the market square a different way.

Indeed, these overblown creative diddlers may have used their imaginations to find a different way to present the same old thing. But imagining things is just a way of thinking about things. Personal thought processes, no more. What we then do, as a result of our imaginings, is what counts. If we change things, revise them, renew or refresh them, we’ve turned ideas into action.  That’s the bit that matters.

I don’t much care if Milord Rogers has re-imagined the built environment. I’d be more interested to know that he’s created a very different kind of office building. I’m un-moved by the news that Baz Filmdirector has re-imagined Casablanca. Tell me he’s directed a new version of the famous (not iconic) movie, and I might like to know more.

After this moment in time

Last for today, let’s not go forward.  ‘ Our strategy, going forward.’ ‘Going forward, we’ll be changing things.’ And ‘What are your plans, going forward?’

In every single case, ‘going forward’ is unnecessary. Superfluous. Redundant. Another piece of  meaningless filler, now in heavy use amongst managers and politicians who think wordiness means value. It doesn’t.

If you want to be understood, if you want to be believed, plain words work best. And if you want to impress, especially in these days of  counter-intuitive strategies going forward at this moment in time, use plain words.

Walter Annenberg was appointed US Ambassador to the UK. Queen Elizabeth II asked him how he found his new quarters in the embassy residence. He said he was ‘suffering some discomfiture as a result of a need for, uh, elements of refurbishment and rehabilitation’.

That was in 1969. They’re still smirking, today.