Off with the head of 'off-ramp!' overuse

Everyone and their uncle's using the word 'off-ramp' in a very off-hand fashion ever since Trump started the war he wants the world to think he's finished. Everyone's 'off-ramp'- dropping - TV and op-ed pundits, fashion show organisers, packers and movers, wheelchair manufacturers.... The expression, used originally by Americans to describe an exit from a highway (our 'exit road' or 'service lane'), has now become the geopolitical term of choice - an opening that can get you out of a sticky situation - even when not applicable to geopolitics.

Thanks to the war, the word's metastasised. Your breakup? An off-ramp. Your diet? An off-ramp. Your boss telling you to stop using that hip flask when on the job? Definitely an off-ramp. Whatever happened to the classics? 'Exit strategy' had gravitas, like Napoleon retreating with dignity. 'Withdrawal plan' evoked armies (not just Napoleon's) trudging home in the snow. Even 'pullout' had a blunt honesty - even as it made diplomats blush. Instead, we're stuck with 'off-ramp' in the age of GPS. Somehow, Churchill growling, 'We shall fight on the beaches, but eventually, we'll take the off-ramp provided by the Soviets at Stalingrad,' doesn't quite have a ring to it. So, peeps: easy with 'off-ramp', please. Let wars not (pretend to) end with the imagery of a truck loaded with cauliflower missing a patli gali.