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

Four Words: Use Other Words Please
"Use other words please."
Commonly used phrases that inexplicably bug you
Most irritating cliche/phrase/expression
"Taking Things to a Whole `Nother Level!"
words that annoy
Words that should earn the author a slap
PROVERBIAL and other tip offs to poor writing

-- caitlin (wpsal...) (webmail), December 23rd, 2003. (caitlin)

Oh yes, yes yes. I second that one. And the people who say it, say it over and over.

I also have a horror of people who write prolifically in all caps.

This is true.

But, this is a topic that should be dealt with routinely and harshly... the only way we can correct the language and suppress it's organic growth is by exposing and banning every new usage as it occurs... Isn't that what the French do?

Also: 'fridge,' girls who refer to each other as 'girl,' proactive...i'll be back when i think of more....

'poetic justice'. Used by the lazy to describe all 'justice' the speaker approves of, instead of a particular type. The adjective is rendered meaningless.

Agree re 'bird' for woman/girl, and lament its threatened return. Stinks of 'I'm being un-PC, where's my medal?'. Also the C-person uses it, which kinda ends the argument.

Wait, huh? Fridge is the thing you put food in, whats wrong with it?

I'm picturing him saying things such as "Would you like me to remove another beverage from the refrigerator for you, whilst we watch some association football?"

Rfi are the following acts Americana or alt-country or folk or is it all a mishmosh:

Honeycutters / Amanda Anne Platt

Eilen Jewell

Richard Shindell / Cry Cry Cry

Cheri Knight / Blood Oranges

kinda feeling annoyed by the word 'gatekeeper' lately tbh. like, some gates are good to keep lol. this is in the context of people posting online about hikes and red rock scenery, slot canyons, etc. and rock art. since covid there has been a huge explosion of 'putting the outdoors online' which means you get a lotta randos with disposable income gaw-gawing in places that used to be a lot quieter and less 'visible'. desert ecosystems are fragile. idk.

i would sort of love it if, some day, there was a trend or push to 'remove' trail info from the internet, like in some specific area, spearheaded by a town who doesn't want all the tourists. probably never going to happen but i think it's a beautiful idea.

this is one of ilx's all-time worst threads and brimstead, *that's* the post you're losing your shit and begging for fps over?

xp if someone declines to say where it is they took their cool photo, inevitably some lady in california is going to say 'stop gatekeeping'

brimmy is just having a moment don't mind him.

but to na: hating fairly neutral words that try to describe how something sounds is pretty weird but i bet you're mad about something else idk.

i am not mad, i am (mildly) annoyed (per the thread title), and i said why - those terms (and others) seem to imply that you need some special knowledge to opine on them but anyone with ears can listen to a song and say "i like how that guitar sounds" or "that guitar sounds like shit" (or "it's cool how that snare is all the way over on the left and has a bunch of reverb on it" which is what sound design is as far as i can tell)
i do agree that some gatekeeping is good and that the term itself is often itself annoying

‘guitar tone ´ strikes me as one of the most neutral, straightforward terms you could use to talk about how a guitar sounds in music?

i don’t disagree with you in theory but baffled by that example

maybe it's just me! i remember reading guitar magazines as a teen and they would always talk about how eric johnson had the best guitar tone and it seemed like a technical term and you had to have special knowledge/listening ability to appreciate it

yeah i mean in the context of those mags it's clearly a dumb magic word.

agree on that context for badass mentioned above, it's used a lot like that and is just sort of weird.

separately, i am starting to tire of 'superpower' being used so much.

'sound design' is a funny one, it sounds a little like a chapter in an audio engineering book, but with a lot of electronic music it's what people are literally doing, designing sounds.

xp oh i hate mcu words being used irl so much. sort of related in vibe, though i'm not sure where it comes from, is 'i got you'

ohhhh i hate that

I use badass as a noun almost exclusively i.e. "he is an Excel badass" or "they're a bunch of Christmas-tree-decorating badasses"

i think because the people i hear say it are white and it’s a black thing so it sounds phony? or something? am i gatekeeping?? idk but i don’t like it

xpost

i say 'badass' when i see a bro send it. kinda kidding but i feel like i say it the most (in my head usually) when i see someone doing something hard outside.

yeah 'i got you' has a little bit of black speak going on. for some reason i associate it with the movie 'the incredibles' seem to recall that 'you got this' was like a catchphrase or something.

stop trying to use the language, people. especially, especially you. you know who i mean.

Or maybe not 1990s. Google Trends shows two big spikes — in early 2015 (Hillary launching her campaign) and spring 2017 (Women's Marches and pussy hats). Which helps crystallize how I often hear it, it's very #ResistanceLib

yeah I don't see it as much as I used to, but it definitely became widespread in the early 2010s in similar contexts. i recall this 2015 Atlantic article was early in identifying it as a trend. and back in 2018, i searched and found that "badass women" was a content tag on buzzfeed, thought catalog, and feministing.

Xp map re nature gatekeeping—look up the history of Bolinas, CA

“Wellness” when it is used by my employer. “Instead of reducing your crushing workload we’re going to emphasize vague ‘wellness’ goals so you feel good about working 60 hour weeks.”

Another thread reminded of this one — “laser focused”
It always reminds me of the old laser pointers that were the size of hand blenders and had switches so you could change the red laser from a small dot to an arrow, and if you fucked with it enough you could get it stuck in between so it was … unfocused.

Block is also a specific term in consensus-based decision making, where you try to resolve objections by compromising or adjusting until you can all agree to something, but there might be someone who isn't satisfied by any of the available options and may choose to "block" the decision and then you can't move forward. It's considered kind of a drastic thing to do, and groups can have rules like, it requires a blocker alone, or the blocker + 1 other person, or 2 other people. But if someone is blocking frequently then there's a larger issue happening that is not about the specific decision in question.

More of corporate jargon lifting terminology from anti-hierarchical, anti-capitalist systems to try to get some of that sweet, sweet legitimacy and make it seem like something new.

I have heard the phrase "block and tackle" (used as a rough synonym of "deal with").

In these instances the speaker is almost certainly thinking of American football, where you might block and/or tackle an opposing player as the situation requires.

They are likely _not_ thinking of "block and tackle," as in mechanical lifting gear.

That is infuriating.

Blocker in my world (digital government) usually means some administrative or policy or bureaucratic situation that requires input, a conversation, or a more serious way of resolution to get the thing done. Or sometimes I guess it's just we can't do x until y is done where one piece of work holds up another.

many xps: Jasmine Crockett is not a badass. She’s a shill for AIPAC and Israel, and not a badass in anyway. Your friend was wrong to use the term for two reasons: she sucks and the term does, too.

Fwiw I also don’t understand NA’s complaint in the slightest, tho obviously was a little taken aback by the response

xp table is trackaipac a reliable site to understand whom they pay? crockett is not listed. like every other texas rep is.

it sort of is, but it is harder to track crypto pacs and donations. she’s accepted 2 mil in crypto donations from pro-Israel crypto pacs, and also went on an all expenses paid trip run by an Israel-backed proxy org based in India.

she’s not a progressive, and her full-throated support of Israel is pretty public

the next progressive senator from Texas has not yet emerged into view

Messi to unveil 70ft statue of himself on 'GOAT' tour

“goat” used to mean the opposite of “hero”

^ yes. that seems to have been overwhelmed by the new meaning.

one can always fall back on 'scapegoat', but that usually connotes unearned blame, while in the earlier usage, if you were the 'goat' when things went wrong it more often than not was merited blame.

well one is a word, one is an acronym that became just the word when people forgot it started as an acronym

like people say "goated" now but when people used to say someone was the GOAT it was in all-caps to make it obvious

a teenager just told me that my dog was “so aesthetic”

i’m so about the redemption of goats, what did they ever do to be so demonized?

Xpost did you keep it copacetic

'sound design' is a funny one, it sounds a little like a chapter in an audio engineering book, but with a lot of electronic music it's what people are literally doing, designing sounds.

There’s an old interview somewhere with Kraftwerk where they said “we spend a month on the sound and five minutes on the chord changes” - it’s great and I try to use it as a parable for other stuff I have to deal with

well, designing and composing are different words to describe the same kind of activity

they are not but OK

no, they are not. even limiting things to classical music there’s a meaningful difference between eg composition and orchestration

This is bugging the shit out of me so final word

brimstead: uses the phrase “guitar tone” in a post

NA: posts like an hour later that he hates “gatekeeper-y” terms like “guitar tone” in the “words that annoy”

brimstead: gets really mad at that because I assume they’re talking about me? is that not a reasonable thing to get upset about or am I just being too Californian?

Again, I’m gone, don’t worry, not even lurking, just not sure if people thought my shit came out of complete nowhere or something

i guess id invite you to ask yourself whether a poster is entitled to post a phrase in this thread independently of whether you used it or not

then whether their having done so, even if you had used it, was them posting "about you"

most of what is posted itt is complete projection anyway.

a teenager just told me that my dog was “so aesthetic”

absolutely (but also i secretly enjoy it)

weatherman says it’s gonna be warm all week at altitide