‘Impossible’ gets my vote on an overused word in the sense of “It can’t happen here,” usually after it has, in fact, happened.
People build in 100-year flood plains assuming that repeated flooding in ten years is impossible. Nuclear power plants have been designed not foreseeing some possibilities for malfunctioning.
I know it’s said out of a sense of denial, a malabsorption of the facts. If something has happened, however, it is possible. Often there’s a sense of deniability in the word as well, as if saying “It’s impossible” absolves one of not foreseeing the possibility that it could happen.
If something is low probability, it’s not impossible.
Words Like Me 