A common reaction people have after listening to a cover of a song they like is that the song was ruined. This is a statement that shows very little grasp of the English language. The word ruin means: The physical destruction or disintegration of something or the state of disintegrating or being utterly destroyed to a point of no return. Yet the word ruin is not among the SAT vocabulary list that people tend to find most difficult. So why do people insist on saying this?

Lets be clear, there is no possible way to “ruin” a song, because no matter how you may perform a song written by someone else, the original is still there. No total destruction anywhere in that process. Really, the more accurate assertion of your dislike of that song should be: “ I do not like the redo of that song as much as the original”. I believe that statement is much nicer, because not only is it using the best words to get your point across, but also because it just generally makes you sound like less of a jerk. However, I fully understand that the second statement is not as much fun to say, it makes it sound much less powerful and severe. Hyperbole is a fun force, unfortunately I find it to be intolerable in this case. Sigh. The sacrifices that must be made for accuracies sake.