Don't Be a Dick

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency," Dick Cheney said of the war in Iraq, on May 30, 2005.

He was wrong by a long shot, but he hit one of my Five Top Overused Phrases:

1. last/death throes: dying is a bitch, yet sometimes things just won't die
   
2. thanks to: unless you're actually thanking someone, just say no thanks
3. swath: section or area should suffice
   
4. decimated: nearly always misused
5. tasty: so it has taste; is that good, bad?

Avoid these, and I promise I won't sneer like Dick Cheney.