Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

"Friend" to mean an inanimate object or activity that one considers beneficial, helpful, or pleasing. Especially annoying when the object/activity is in the plural, as in "Sore joints? Ice packs are your friend."

i HATE "uber"

― irritable bol syndrome (s1ocki), Thursday, 11 November 2010 23:11 (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

especially how its always used with "hip" and "cool"

― irritable bol syndrome (s1ocki), Thursday, 11 November 2010 23:12 (2 months ago) Bookmark

I read the phrase "painfully hip" in an article the other day, that was actually praising said artist. A real cliche if I ever heard one.

said artist is annoying

"How's that workin' out for ya?"

People at my work say "sems" instead of centimetres. savages

"overcome by events"

have heard this 4-5 times this week already

When politician says about his state (or country) "XYZ is Open For Business". I just read something from the governor's office saying "New Jersey is Open For Business". First of all, it's stupid. Secondly, it's been used a ton, so if you're trying to be original and cute, you are failing miserably. Third, New Jersey is almost certainly not "open for business" unless you work in an unemployment office.

Acknowledging the public snub, a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: "Universities have always been bastions of free speech and debate.

"However, our student and university finance reforms are fairer than the present system and affordable for the nation."

BASTION

especially loathesome in this context cuz it suggests that universities are a sort of holdout of dissent whereas in this instance they express the will of most of the country

You know what I hate?

I hate "as [so-and-so] might put it" ...when the phrase that so-and-so "might" use is something the person wrote/said/sang ONCE (even if it was very famous).

My long-time annoyance at this was re-triggered by this sentence, in reference to the summer of 1974 in American politics: "It was, as Charles Dickens might put it, the best of times and the worst of times." Really? As though that weren't just a sentence in one of his books, but the dude's fucking catchphrase or something.

I posted this in another thread but:

"No biggie." (as in no big problem). Awful, awful, awful.

"No diggity" is worse.

No doubt.

Last week I was surrounded by the sort of people who constantly start the answer to a question by saying "Put it this way" as though they're about to make a grand earth-shattering statement but follow it with something completely unremarkable e.g.:

"What colour is the sky?"
"Put it this way: the sky is blue"

Really? As though that weren't just a sentence in one of his books, but the dude's fucking catchphrase or something.

― jaymc, Thursday, June 30, 2011 5:48 PM Bookmark

good call. I think this is the kind of construction that probably started out with a hint of irony but then that gradually got lost as it was mindlessly overused.

Yeah, I think for the "as so and so might have put it" to work it has to be a funny paraphrasing that modernizes or somehow bastardizes the original.

Reading Kingsley Amis's 'The King's English' at the moment--he's wonderful (and very funny) at shooting down these irritating usages.

You know, now that I think about it, all you need to do is just replace "might" with "once" and it's fine!

i think this has its origin in sportswriting but I've seen it moving beyond that into the real world: Switching from past to present-tense when speaking about hypothetical after-the-fact non-occurances. Like a losing coach saying something like "That missed penalty shot was probably the turning point: if Clarke scores on that one, maybe we regain the momentum that we had early on." What's wrong with the word "scoreD" and the phrase "we'd have regained"?? Man that irritates me.

This is gonna sound totally random, but....

MVB, I think that boils down to English-speakers' growing discomfort with the subjunctive tense, already used less frequently than in other European languages.

If I was you I would attempt to make peace with it.

'baked in'

mikhail bakedin

"Me thinks" or "Methinks".

methinks the chap doth protest too much

"usages"

methinks the chap doth protest too much

― Number None

It's fine in Shakespeare, but not on Facebook.

Percy: Beshrew me, Edmund! You're in good fooling this morning.

Edmund: Don't say `beshrew me', Percy -- only stupid actors say `beshrew me'.

Percy: Oh, how I would love to be an actor! I had a great talent for it in
my youth -- I was the man of a thousand faces.

Edmund: How'd you come to choose the ugly mug you've got now, then?

Percy: Hah hah! Tush, My Lord.

Edmund: ...and don't say `tush', either! It's only a short step from `tush'
to `hey nonny nonny'; and then, I'm afraid, I'll shall have to call
the police.

it's already been mentioned here, but... that acronym for president of the united states, along with the first lady and supreme court versions

i hate i hate i hate please make this stop now. forever.

Lots of ones from around the office that I should start to collect here.

"T-Shirt Sizing" - means decide if a project is small, medium, or large

"Supreme Court says it's a tax" - means this decision is final

and my current least favorite:

"Hanging chads" - means things left undone or undecided, which is not what the phrase meant originally, plus that was like 10 years ago, let's move on.

"I loves me some..."

"Build a bridge and get over it". I've been seeing this often lately. It's a sanctimonious phrase used in a self-satisfied manner by pretentious clots who have no more than three phrases in their repertoires.

"Reeling", especially in the context of a traumatic event. Commonly assumes the unified emotion of an entire suburb/town/city.

I hate when someone says "we're going to do X" where X is a place, e.g. "we're going to do the Louvre today".

Yes. Hate this. Fulfil your mission, robotic achiever.

My manager also says "irregardless", invariably. I've tried to correct by subtly interchanging the confused words in conversation. There's no hope for him.

"Like something out of a movie" -- most nondescript, nonspecific thing a person could possibly say

ha I almost searched for this thread earlier so I could add "cool beans" but then I didn't.

"A girl I had a huge crush on used to say "Cool beans!" I momentarily fell out of love with her each time.
― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, September 13, 2005 5:33 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

HA!

ha!

a similar thing happened to me, but the word was 'anyways'

in the end she was kerrray-zy so

the word 'ping' when used to mean 'send an email'

"I'll ping it over to you."

stfu no you won't, you'll email it to me.

very common, that one. weird.

i have to admit i like ping, used generally for any quick communication

I like it, but could totally see getting sick of it. Was there some submarine movie that brought it into the common lexicon?

i say "fire it over to me".

i might start saying "horse it over to me"

I say "sink my aircraft carrier"

i simply say "engage".

enjoy me on my e-mail

i assume it is from the networking test, a nerd repurposing that was appropriated by business types

"My bad"