I just ran across another annoying use of the word “eschew” on Slashdot. On Slashdot, of all places!
OK. Once more, for the record:
Everyone, everywhere, everywhen, should seriously and definitely eschew the usage of the word eschew. It’s silly and annoying and obnoxious, and it sounds all puffed up and nose-in-the-air and hoity-toity. You might as well ask it to pass the grey poupon. It is all things good language is not.
It certainly can’t be a Saxon word. As English schoolboys used to say,
“Latin words perplex the bean;
Saxon words say what they mean.”
Well, a quick check of the Eytmology Online dictionary suggests it is old French. OK, still not Saxon.
And still not usable by self-respecting red-blooded speakers of the English language.