Commonly used phrases that inexplicably bug you

However, you are not living in England and therefore a tad less likely to come across statements beginning in 'I'm afraid', 'we regret' etc. I always take perverse pleasure in saying they're not or they do not, just to be an arse.

Also, the winner of banality and idiocy in overused phrases (and yes it's UNCOOL) is AT THE END OF THE DAY.

"I'm going for a shit, shower and a shave" - Usually used by people who wear rugby shirts when not playing rugby, on top of another shirt.

"Talk to the hand because the fuckwit isn't listening" - What I wish they would say, but never do. I remember Andi Peters did this to Britney Spears on that T4 Special of his, and she laughed as if she hadn't heard it 36582 times already.

I also hate it when people just say, "let's order Chinese", not "Chinese food". But that one's really stupid on my part, I think.

And I hate the way the word "absolutely" is used these days, too. It's so talk show speak.

"How cute is that"? How annoying as hell is that? But Suzy's "at the end of the day" is #1.

;)

"well I tried to do it/legion of other excusing terms". As discussed on the good intentions thread, I fucking hate people using cop out terms like these when they have fucked up. Is a simple "I fucked up, sorry" too much to ask for. This is how I try and treat my friends if I'm the guilty party.

"talking behind my back". 100 percent of people that ever use this phrase say stuff like "if you've got something to say say it to my face" when in reality they're such blubbering messes that they can't handle anything being said to their face. I mean christ if the meaning of all this talk "behind someones back" is that they're a knob then do they want that said to their face? Very few people want that kind of direct approach, but anyone who does is admirable.

I mean when people are bugging you about something pointless its perfect.

Ally shouldn't ever come to London if she doesn't think people talk like ILE in real life.

"Like, hello"; "Puh-leeze" etc. - really bad. You're not a sitcom character.

Or even worse "you've got to learn some tolerance". Of course ignore the fact you're pointing out something that irritates you right now because it's done in a sanctimonious way so it can't be intolerant can it? Christ that really gets me

I just realised I have the classic 'can't stand that phrase' story. At 15 I had my first boyfriend, loved him continually for next 8 years, though relationship only lasted 3 months. How it ended was I saw him on bus and he sat with me, when he got up to leave he said to me 'Take it easy.' TAKE IT EASY? It was all over.

why was i not informed of this earlier?

"Bite me" - Oh, believe me, I'd love to if I weren't afraid of catching something.

Also, any cliche on the order of "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." So much for valuing the truth, eh? Totalitarian thinking begins in kindergarten.

I'm so sick of overused 'hip' modern slang that I've considered adopting ludicrously outdated slang, a la David Lynch. "Golly gee whiz why jeepers heck yeah you old son of a gun!"

Is it possible to live without using any slang whatsoever?

British people saying 'don't go there' drives me nuts. My friend Esther does this, I glare, she apologises.

Also, any football metaphors (American or otherwise) eg. 'it's a game of two halves'.

I often deliberately add "in a very real sense", "if you will" and "and indeed" just to annoy. (i think this is a mark-and-lard- ism?) things like "rythym is, in a very real sense, a dancer" and "woo, and indeed, hoo"

I also find IMHO looks kind of snooty.

Anyone on an advert who does what the Mad one describes (5-9-9) should be shot. Also, I HAAAAAAAAATE people who use 'dollar' or 'pound' to describe a plural amount of money. Nothing in the whole world makes a person sound so THICK as doing this.

"that's so immature". Myth-Playing jokes, going a bit wild, getting drunk etc is immature.

Fact-Being a complete control freak who won't do anything that might result in embarassment is immature.

Also, people who preface their bold statements with "Well, you know what?" (like, "Well, you know what? It's *not* okay, Arthur.") are starting to bug me.

Alan, your post is, in a very real sense, the funniest of the day. If you will.

Also, just to be curmudgeonly I'll add that "for the record" makes perfect sense to me. Everyone and their grandmother knows that it's a short and simple metaphorical statement that attempts to convey the fairly complex idea that what is to follow is some final clarification, or an ultimate truth. What's wrong with that?

"By the tiny fingers of little baby Jesus!" is the best exclamation ever, by the way.

does anyone remember Quantum Leap? I am sure that had one of the saddest catch phrases ever with ever episode ending in "oh Boy' its pipped at the post by Scarlett O hara's fiddle dee dee though.

I recall that for a long time after if anyone in real life said that I would think: "Sam Beckett has leaped into that person."

Totally irrational, but I can actually feel the nausea rising in my throat.

hahaha

that really annoys me, A LOT!

I also really hate "speaking for myself" (who else are you speaking for?) and the perfunctory, mechanical farewell geature at awkward meetings/dates: "Nice to meet you. Perhaps see you again?" when it's patently obvious you never want to darken each other's paths ever again in your lives gets me as well. I've used the latter more than once myself, and I'm acutely aware of just how hollow and false I sounded.

I know it's not a phrase but the mannerism of gesturing using inverted commas gets on my nerves also. Don't know why - my knee-jerk reaction is irritation with the person's implicit pretension.

What's classic about air commas?

You have to punctuate that by clicking your tongue against your cheek and doing a 2-gun "quickdraw" pointing thing with both hands.

"Let's do this!" HAHAHAHAHAHA

Joei vs. Kim FITE. Will Dan mind?

It made me think that the art of using "flowery words" to enhance themselves was something endemic in most academically-minded people my age (I'm 26). I went out to dinner with some people who run a website I used to write a bit for and found myself in conversation with their "star writer" who's doing a PhD and who critiques prospective articles on the grounds that it was "tokenistic" (what?), believed that people "disseminate" information from experience (this was TV programmes we were talking about)and later confessed in weary tones his utter disillusionment with "academia". It made me quite relieved not to done a M.A. myself, as a postgraduate education might have brought on a worrying extension of a pseudo-savvy, pseudo-cool, A Level deep and meaningful personality.

[you let me down]

I hate the phrase 'anyways...'

If I C a message with a whole lot of 2 4 to or too or 4 for for I no there's no point in transl8ing it. You may as well just type 'I'm a semi-literate cretin and/or a lazy bastard and it doesn't matter if my stuff is impossible to read properly because it isn't worth reading anyway.'

The same goes for 'bcos' and '2moro' and especially 'prolly'.

I'm still here because mostly that crap isn't.

Another pet peeve, which will proBABly appear in tomorrow's paper: 'Safin pulled out of the Australian Open because (omitted here: he was) injured.' Clumsy and lazy.

Likewise, I might see written: " '(David) Beckham, (Ryan) Giggs and (Ruud) van Nistleroy all played below thir best', Ferguson said.".

Dear Mr Sports Editor, 1) I actually couldn't give a crap whether Ferguson actually used their first names when he referred to Beckham, Giggs and the other bloke or not; 2) I guessed all by myself we're talking about David and not his less talented brother Cyril; and 3) if I COULD give a mollusc's bollock enough about Manchester United to read the story in the first place, the chances are I already know those blokes' first names and don't need to be told them. So why the need for the brackets?

Yes, seeing as you asked, I do feel better.

also overuse of parentheses ;)

...and emoticons

u write it out at full length = u tuck yr shirt into yr underpants 2B on the safe side

I hate that one.

sorry to those who use this, i just can't stand it.

"shot to death"

This one, commonly used in news reports, seems to imply an continuous or repetitive action in order to achieve the result of death by gunshot wound. However, it is also used when only a single shot was fired resulting in death. Moreover, even if multiple gunshots led to death, I have this image in my mind of the shooter checking between shots to see if the victim is dead!

Does this not bug anyone else???? Please tell me I am not alone!

"hang by the neck until dead" likewise

spencer that is a WEIRD thing to get hung up about!!

The only time I'm easy's when I'm
Killed by death
Killed by death
Killed by death
Killed by death

"shot to death" really can mean only one gunshot wound, how else does one effectively drink the suicider?

The one that's really bothering me right now is 'As far as X...' when the person means 'As far as X is concerned...'

As far as hitting the medulla oblongatta goes, you could shoot someone to death.

People who use the word 'anal' to mean obsessive over details e.g. "stop being anal over this".

I don't buy into Freud's theory of the anal retentive personality development, not do a lot of people understand what it means when they are using it.

It means they need to quit rubbing their butthole all over things. Yucko!

I should make it a short-term goal to describe someone as anally expulsive to their face, just to see the reaction.

how anal/creative are you with itunes genre labeling?

spencer that is a WEIRD thing to get hung up about!!

-- ian, Tuesday, November 27, 2007 2:53 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

This is what my coworker told me, but it's the whole point of the thread. Is my being hung up to death about this stranger than others here???

my aspie ex used to call people anal expulsive to their face

Not being one to get wound up easily by this sort of thing, but I've noticed the unnecessary use of "at all" after a question being used on the phone at work. "Have you been to our website at all?", "Are you familiar with what we do at all?".

xpost Yeah, one of my ex's used to lose control of her bowels sometimes. She didn't really understand what she was doing. She had Down Syndrome, you see... one of God's little "oopsies," as her mother used to say! There wasn't much to be done about it, except to grab her by the scruff of the neck and stick her nose in it, and say, "NO! Bad!"

Re: "shot to death"
You can be shot without dying, so I think it's used indicate that the victim was killed, and how in one easy phrase.

"ginormous", "do me a solid" (though I've only heard this on tv shows really), and...

"everybody makes mistakes" when used to defend somebody, whether it be a celebrity or a national icon like Eva Peron.

"gettin my drink on", cuz the people that say it are the type of people I can't stand....20-somethings that hop from job to job and spend entire weekends forgetting their name and trading underwear unwittingly with strangers

xpost

But then I would just say "shot dead". The "to" in shot to death seems to imply that more is going on than just having been killed with a gun.

a former coworker of mine was always "getting her <something> on", it was kind of endearing

what a freak

'that being said' and 'having said that'

"Put some pants on". it's become such a tired cliche either in sitcoms, comedy routines, or even just people joking in real life to throw the phrase "put some pants on" to be funny.

ie..."That's funny. Usually people just shout 'put some pants on' at me. omg is teh clevr"

To put something "in the mix" UGH

back when I used to work in restaurants..."can I get you anything else?"

"WINNING LOTTO NUMBERS".

:(

I see what you're getting at now with "shot to death" now, maybe they're implying that the shooter intended to kill the victim rather than just buy some time for a getaway, or a stray bullet or something.

But if you hear this often enough to be bugged by it you're probably watching too much local LA news.

Haha, it's actually because I was watching local news over thanksgiving (Dad still watches the KTLA 10pm news even though Hal Fishman is gone... )

lol @ BJO only liking people with job security

haha I didn't mean that....I shoulda said "getting fired from job after job"

Re: shot to death

"shot and killed" is kind of stranger. Suggests victim was shot and then killed.

What? Neither of those is weird.

yeah I don't think so either, actually.

For reasons vaguely similar to the "don't mean to be rude" hate, I really hate "No offence" as well as "Don't take this the wrong way."

Don't take this the wrong way, but you misspelled offense!

;););)

mine is sundar's

another variation: "not to be an asshole, but..."

too much ass on this threat - you're all fixated...don't forget the oral...

You can get stabbed to death, beaten to death, poisoned to death, so why not shot? Or are all of these offensive?

You can't get poisoned to death... stabbed and beaten to death both imply multiple wounds, which I think was the problem with shot to death in the first place.

"of age" in place of "old". Used to be a speciality of sportscasters - "a marvellous runner, only 18 years of age" - now everyone on the telly says it. I suspect an internal BBC guideline... but why?

"Enjoy" when people mean "enjoy it" or " enjoy yourself" is the worst. And the use of the word "party" as a verb, although I'm reading F Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned at the moment, and the characters "go on a party" as in go on a two day bender, which is must better.

I cannot stand "fair enough"

"to be honest" has reached pandemic proportions.

I hate 'it's a no-brainer'.

How do you feel about "deal-breaker"?

I've come to hate "it is what it is." My mother's started saying that, and whenever she does, I say "What do you mean?" That is an equally annoying response because I think it's meant to end the conversation, but it brings me perverse joy.

"Supposably".

"in a nutshell"

My other one was "I'm not a racist, but..." But the reasons that bugs me are not inexplicable.

The word "natch" as a replacement for "naturally".

"in terms of"

using "whole" and "thing," as in "Richard Kelly's whole let's-cast-bad-actors thing..."

I've come to hate "it is what it is." My mother's started saying that, and whenever she does, I say "What do you mean?" That is an equally annoying response because I think it's meant to end the conversation, but it brings me perverse joy.

-- Maria, Wednesday, November 28, 2007 3:04 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

OTM maria! i came here to post this one - my dad constantly says it...

"I'm not trying to be difficult/argumentative" <<< YES YOU ARE!!!!!!!

I'd like to remind myself to word that sentencs as, "I'm trying not to be difficult." That's closer to what is meant, I think. "This is not easy for me... you see, my first impulse is to be a giant prick. But just for you, I'm making an extra effort to not do that. So, now that you're feeling appropriately grateful, I can tell you what's on my mind."

My other one was "I'm not a racist, but..." But the reasons that bugs me are not inexplicable.

-- franny glass, Wednesday, 28 November 2007 15:37 (11 minutes ago) Link

...could it be that what usually follows is racist?

ha

It just needs to be expanded on, is all. "I'm not a racist... I mean, I'm not the worst racist you've heard of or anything. I'm not a Nazi, or at least I don't go to rallys. Ok, I don't wear the armband. I don't have any black friends, but hey, who can deal with those people amirite? You can't have them over for dinner. Anyway, like I was saying, I'm not a racist, but..."

When I hear phrases like, I'm not a racist, but..., I have the urge to retort, "sayin' it ain't so don't make it not so".

Unfortunately, the radio and the telly rarely listen to me.

My other one was "I'm not a racist, but..." But the reasons that bugs me are not inexplicable.

-- franny glass, Wednesday, 28 November 2007 15:37 (11 minutes ago) Link

...could it be that what usually follows is racist?

-- Brigadier Pudding, Wednesday, November 28, 2007 4:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Not usually, always.

"out and about"

1) "Crazy" in place of "Very" - ie. "I can't go out tonight, I'm crazy busy."

2) "Chillaxing" - A completely unnecessary amalgam of two words which were fine on their own.

I find these two especially galling when educated people in their 30s drop them into conversation. Anyone born before 1990 should eradicate these from their repertoire immediately.

"Enjoy" when people mean "enjoy it" or " enjoy yourself" is the worst.
The worst? Ever? Oh dear. We should probably never meet.

I cannot stand "fair enough"
We must really never meet.

My father likes to start sentences (preferably when he is telling me some objectionable or point-missing thing for the thirtieth time, in ever more excruciatingly slow detail) with "if you don't mind me saying". I might not have minded the rest of the sentence, but I definitely mind that prefix, and what can I do about it anyway? It's not like the previous times I registered my objection are stopping you telling me again.

Using 'key' when you mean 'important' or 'significant'. Re: this sentence from one of my students' papers:

This reaction is key in making the reader realise that their attitudes and Gulliver's aren't so different.

Also singular/plural agreement:

This reaction is key in making the reader realise that their her attitudes and Gulliver's aren't so different.

singular antecedents for forms of the pronoun they are attested in the finest English authors since Middle English times

(not my own words)

I almost think we should legitimize using "their" in some situations like that though, or come up with some other indeterminate pronoun. Otherwise we either wind up using a gendered pronoun when the person could be male or female, or we use the awful "his or her"

20-somethings that hop from job to job and spend entire weekends forgetting their name and trading underwear unwittingly with strangers

hey

xpost I detest using 'he/she', but it's gotta be singular. I use (and tell my students to use) one or the other, and alternate throughout your writing for fairness.

i agree with "enjoy" 100%

"congrats"

(the latter said to me in a perfect american accent by an unbearably handsome and successful french man on the occasion of my wedding, just moments after conducting a long conversation in rapid french with his unbearably groomed father - he would totally say "enjoy" as well)

I kind of hate "Have a nice day," but it's such a part of our common language, and there are few other things one can say to people that one deals with only in short, impersonal ways, like the checkout person or the bank teller (assuming you don't know them). Even worse is the Jersey-fied "Have a good one." But I say it all the time anyway.

I detest using 'he/she', but it's gotta be singular

why? just out of interest...

I hardly ever get to say this but, WOW, you people are sensitive. :D

Hurting you have lost your soul

("have a good 'un" is very southern, too)

there is NEVER A NEED to say "have a nice day" EVER

I do think a lot of these dislikes come from having a certain experience of a word or phrase that the rest of us with different experiences/backgrounds won't be aware of. Like a while back the Chicago kids schooled me about "work hard, play hard" and the truly unpleasant back-slapping fratty douchebag stockbroker whatever connotations -- I'd never really noticed, I guess. Well, plus I don't really know any of those kinds of people and I don't have to be around them.

I'm jealous of other cultures that get to say more intense-sounding things like "God be with you."

"Have a nice day," sounds like "I hope your day is wholly uneventful and you don't get stuck in too much traffic or stub your toe or anything."

BUT BUT -- if you don't say "Have a nice day", what are your pleasant, well-wishing leave-taking options? "Goodbye to you, sir"? "Yo, keep it real"?

"May the road lead downhill all the way to your door"?

Anyway getting stuck in traffic and stubbing your toe both suck, I'd rather not do either. And isn't there a Chinese curse or something that goes "May you live in eventful times"?

if it's someone at a store i say "thanks"

if it's somebody else it's "see ya" or "take care" or something

"have a nice day" is literally a PARODY!

May the wind be always at your back, etc.

It's a little like that DFW thing about the "professional smile" - it's bland and forced and yet you come to expect it and find it "rude" when someone doesn't give you the courtesy.

yes Laurel, except it's "interesting" rather than "eventful" i think

"sleep in"

it's SLEEP LATE or just SLEEP.

I also hate it when I unwittingly say "Take it easy." I might as well just say "Keep on coastin'"

But yeah, all these things are just so much social grease.

I'm not really one to talk b/c I frequently get het up about silly symbolic things for various reasons, but these examples, well...I mean, one NEEDS some kind of social grease, doesn't one? That's half of what manners are for to begin with.

well there's grease and then there's grease

Also I've caught myself telling people to "Have a nice afternoon" recently, if I was doing business with them in the post-lunch period. For me, for business, "Take it easy" and etc are too informal.

I detest using 'he/she', but it's gotta be singular

why? just out of interest...

'Cause the pronoun is there to refer back to the original noun; its purpose is to stand in for that noun, and thus must agree in number with that noun.

I detest using 'he/she', but it's gotta be singular. I use (and tell my students to use) one or the other, and alternate throughout your writing for fairness.

It's political correctness gone mad!!!

haha

"take care" seems kind of weird, doesn't it? i use it all the time though.

even though singular antecedents for forms of the pronoun they are attested in the finest English authors since Middle English times?

I hate to harp on. Take it to the grammar fiends thread!

"take care" is weird when you think about it, it's almost foreboding

yes!

"<x> is lame" - a lazy remark by people who can't be bothered to formulate a proper argument about why they don't like something. Similarly "meh" when talking about someone else's efforts.

I'm not a very big fan of "smash" when used in a sexual connotation.

My boyfriend is starting to hate "not really," because I use it constantly to mean "not actually" and he always hears it as "not that much."

even though singular antecedents for forms of the pronoun they are attested in the finest English authors since Middle English times?

I hate to harp on. Take it to the grammar fiends thread!

I may do! There are *tons* of examples of poor grammar/usage in 'proper writing', but that's not actually relevant. We don't use correct grammar just to be 'correct' or to write like the adults do; grammar should function so that we say exactly what we mean, as clearly as possible.

I am also inexplicably bugged by student essays that begin 'Erasmus remarked that...'

I would totally start a 'horrible student papers' thread if it weren't totally unethical and sort of nasty.

DO IT DO IT DO IT

HOTMAIL ACCT, ANON NAME, DO IT

"<x> is lame" - a lazy remark by people who can't be bothered to formulate a proper argument about why they don't like something. Similarly "meh" when talking about someone else's efforts.

-- snoball, Thursday, November 29, 2007 3:52 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

wvs

Sheesh.

pffft.

"Epictetus noted drily to a colleague that..."

i too would like to read particularly cringeworthy excerpts

i can't remember if this has been mentioned, but:

"lighted" vs "lit"

why "drunk" sometimes (i.e. "had drunk") and "drank" others?

i have also seen "grinded" rather than "ground"

woops wrong thread

"lighted" gets on my tits though

Politicians (usually) saying "I put it to you that..." or "I would say to you that..." - just fucking say it! Don't tell me you're saying it before saying it. I put it to you that you're stalling and you think this shit sounds more sincere than "Um..."

DO IT DO IT DO IT
HOTMAIL ACCT, ANON NAME, DO IT

i too would like to read particularly cringeworthy excerpts

This would make me something like bizarro HOOS. Still, I'll think about it.

i don't like "standing on line" instead of "standing in line." it bugs me because it sounds internetty or something.

come up with some other indeterminate pronoun.

"make no mistake"

popularized by Dubya/Cheney = FUCK YOU WHOEVER SAYS THIS

"mark my words"

"across it" as in "i just wanted to make sure you were across that" or "is anyone across it over on your end?"

I imagine there's a tone of voice and a demeanor that will let you say any of these things. Semi-ironic works for me sometimes. I love to pull out weird colloquialisms and cliches, just because people know I'm not the kind of person who uses them.

what does "across it" mean?

i'm reading it like, "I'm on it," but the the extra fun imagery of , like, having a project laid out on a board room table and then lustily sprawling on it.

"No disrespect..." usually followed by something disrespectful.

"nothing personal"... followed by something totally personal

INTERNET ONLY: I hate 'Er', 'Um' or 'Uh' when used as the first word in someone's reply to a comment, because it comes off as feebly trying not to cause offence but very patronising at the same time.

kenan has got it pretty much, it's a britishism which is like "aware and informed of it and prepared to deal with it if necessary"

xpost YES

i have never encountered this bizarre 'across it' thing.

'and so forth and so on'

"blase blase" used to mean "blah blah." i heard our office mgr at the time say it , but i figured it was just her own malapropism. then suddenly i heard it everwhere (or so it seemed), and it drove me nuts.

Some time in the past five years the general USA public mass-shifted from such sensible greetings such as 'hello', 'hi', or 'good morning' to the immensely irritating "How're you doing?".

It is immensely irritating because it is a question, not a greeting, but none (as in not one) of the people who use this phrase have the smallest interest in getting an answer; they treat it as a statement, or more accurately as a conventional blurt. They might as well be saying "boo" or "yowza".

There seems to me no polite way to respond. By the time I say, "I'm doing fine, and you?", my interlocutor has already turned aside or walked on by. Irritates the fuck out of me.

i say "good, yourself?" HOTCHA! TABLES TURNED!

You can get stabbed to death, beaten to death, poisoned to death, so why not shot? Or are all of these offensive?

Again, the thing is that being shot once is an instantaneous and singular thing, however the "to" implies repetition and some amount of time passing.

Those other "to"s make more sense - stabbing usually involves more than one stab, beaten definitely implies more than a single hit - poisoned is similar here but is so often done "over time" that it doesn't bug me as much.

SORRY this is all so morbid!!!

shits & giggles. that's my least fave. in a big way. i try not to hate the people who say it. i think most people think it's inoffensive enough. but i just picture someone shitting and giggling and i want to jump off a cliff.

someone has probably already brought it up, but that whole "speak to" thing makes me crazy. "let me speak to that". that seemingly came out of nowhere until it was everywhere. kinda like how one day everyone stopped saying "same thing" and started saying "same difference". i still don't know how that happened.

INTERNET ONLY: I hate 'Er', 'Um' or 'Uh' when used as the first word in someone's reply to a comment, because it comes off as feebly trying not to cause offence but very patronising at the same time.

god, seward otm with "shits and giggles."

UGH

"having said that"

everyone stopped saying "same thing" and started saying "same difference".

i hate "same difference," it makes no sense!

http://www.myparkmag.co.uk/images/xfactor-sdifference2.jpg

Who, us?

"Been there, done that."

Ugh! FUCK YOU!!!!!!

Colonel Poo OTM! wtf guys

TS: "shits and giggles" vs. "shits and grins"

I have a WoW character named Grinz. Should I make one named Schitz?

Referring to men and women as "males" and "females." "A 39 year old male was apphrehended last night ..." I assume this started with cops, but it's spread to the news and other areas now. Maybe the speakers are not sure of the species but solid on the sex.

so they should say like... "A 39 year old Human male"?

"Be careful!" after you've just tripped over something. No shit, dudes. It's not like I'm going to go back, do the EXACT same thing with more care and gracefulness.

Maybe I was just a clumsy child or something, and can't handle hearing it now.

(I totally was a clod)

Referring to men and women as "males" and "females." "A 39 year old male was apphrehended last night ..." I assume this started with cops, but it's spread to the news and other areas now. Maybe the speakers are not sure of the species but solid on the sex.

-- nickn, Thursday, 29 November 2007 22:08 (29 minutes ago) Link

Yeah, this always makes me think of animals.