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?"

Are we now so old that we're getting nostalgic about words, usages and phrases that used to annoy us?

https://xkcd.com/1210

kind of poetic, random now means dumb when nice used to mean accurate

“Random” was a term Bill Gates used as an insult for poor work or thought. Is what I heard.

i associate it with absurdist humor, non-sequiturs, space ghost coast to coast type stuff

I remember a period of everyone saying random too, but not the break in meaning - it was to convey a situation being crazy, not lame. This still meant it got abused a lot, because teens have a low threshold for what is considered bizarre, but it wouldn't be random to, say, get assigned homework.

I do like the term "rando" as applied to a complete-and-not-totally-welcome stranger. Bonus points awarded when prefaced with "fuckin'".

hahaha, I had a co-worker that would walk into a place and she'd say "ugh, bunch of randos and fuckin' casuals" which would always delight me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MvMRdX2k5g

yeah, 'rando' is a good one, no other word really conveys that usage

I'm very disappointed that my fellow Americans have never embraced "saddo," which is a brilliant and extremely useful word that applies to tons of pop culture figures. "Sadboi" just doesn't have the knife-in-the-ribs quality I'm after.

it was to convey a situation being crazy, not lame

I know this version as well... it's a very flexible word, depends on how you utter it

... a very random word even

fractal.jpg

There’s always sad sack

in america we just cast the sexual viability of the saddo in doubt eg virgin vs chad memes. or just use "loser". like, being sad is not an issue if you're successful (see: drake). i'm assuming we're mostly talking about men here, for some reason that's obscure to me i don't think "saddo" is used to describe women much if at all.

I can imagine a woman calling herself a saddo but not anyone else calling a woman that, for some reason.

no you wouldn't, a woman is a sadda

haa

Saddx

My kid had a 13 yo friend over recently who was throwing “aesthetic” around nonstop. I have tried to talk to my child about the definition of “aesthetic” and “iconic” and I have given up. Language moves on, but it’s startling to see language mutate so quickly.

― Cow_Art, Tuesday, June 17, 2025 3:42 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

The thing that drives me nuts about how “aesthetic” is being used now is that we already have a word for it - stylish. What the fuck is wrong with "stylish"?

great stuff

"Aesthetic" entered common use in English relatively recently. And it meant not "stylish" but rather "valuing appearance for its own sake" per the 19th century Aesthetic Movement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticism?wprov=sfla1

The more standard meaning today is more neutral and less normative; "the study or theory of..." with the "of" meaning stuff like beauty and humor and sexiness but also the lack of such - ugliness and blandness are also asthetic judgments.

Which is derived from how aesthetics is/was treated in philosophy, both ancient and modern. That academic sense has become the standard common meaning, but it was not so 150 years ago.

So not to be all "well ackshually," but the use of "aesthetic" to mean "pleasing" would have been recognizable to Walter Pater. He would have grokked a modern 13-year-old.

I had a related issue some time ago about the word "intuitive." Like an actual out-loud argument in a newsroom.

Someone had used "intuitive" as praise for someone "John Doe is courageous, dedicated, and intuitive." My fellow copywriter and I were like, "intuitive of WHAT?"

The writer meant "able to intuit things well," akin to "perceptive." But the current meaning is more "easy to understand and use," like a user interface.

XPOST - I'm familiar with the aesthetic movement, thanks. I doubt, however, the majority tweens out there using it as an adjective know any of the above. The way it's being used now does seem to basically mean that something is cool/ looks good / is stylish. They are not using it in the sense that someone might have 150 years ago come on.

https://nassauweekly.com/the-problem-with-calling-something-aesthetic/

it’s like someone calling an activity difficult “at altitude,” and I’m just “at WHAT altitude, there are many.”

"Stylish" is a word my grandmother would have recognised. "Aesthetic" to say something looks nice would have left her befuddled.

When faced with those two options, any sane young person should use option two.

it’s like someone calling an activity difficult “at altitude,” and I’m just “at WHAT altitude, there are many.”

honestly I'm struggling to think of a scenario where this phrase would be ambiguous.

iirc hunt3r is a mountain dude so like 6,000 ft vs 10,000 feet vs 14,000 ft are worth differentiating

"At altitude" is the same thing as "at scale" or "at speed."

"Can your product deliver these results at scale?"

"Yes."

(As long as the scale is microscopic.)

you say "at altitude" when you mean "at high altitude". if you're already at high altitude and talking about an even higher altitude, you'd probably switch to actual elevations in meter or feet or whatever.

Hey man, pass the bong so that I can get at altitude

we used to use the term “get lifted” when we were talking about bongrips

"bongrips"

lol

heavy

Em ee tee ayche oh dee man

Wait so your work colleagues are asking about how intuitive a website is to someone who is high?

doing something "in anger" meaning, doing it fully

this is just an English thing as far as I know and it's very confusing

i think it's a WW2 thing - difference between drill and action

"love me some (xxxx)" I can't believe people are still writing like fucking Slingblade in 2025

"aesthetic"

I'm willing to be corrected, but that particular word reminds me of another thing that annoys me. It's cliche. Specifically the adjectivication of the word cliche. As in "that's so cliche".

I'm reasonably certain that adjectivication is the correct word. I had very little formal training in the English language. I cannot off the top of my head tell you the difference between an adverb and an adjective. I learned to write instinctively, by sniffing dog toys and playing with my mother's perfume. And then, as if by magic, I could write. In addition I also consumed a lot of written media and imitated it, just like an artificial intelligence, and just like an artificial intelligence I don't understand what any of it means or why it exists or anything.

On the other hand I know that I am real. I am here, right now. Standing on my own two feet. Which makes it difficult to type because I have to bend down. Perhaps I should use this chair that happens to be conveniently placed in front of my computer. SIT CHAIR. It worked. I'm going to go back on topic now. In my world something is a cliche. Something is such a cliche. Something has become a cliche. It is so cliched. All of this is fine and dandy, but "that's so cliche" is bad and wrong. It does not read Sutter Cane. It is bad and wrong.

You'll just have to mentally insert the accents. I'm not going to do it. I know how to do a euro sign. €. It's alt-gr and 4. A rare, rare use of the alt-gr key. I could copy and paste the accent but I'm not going to. When did I first read the word meme? Quite near the beginning of Deus Ex there's a bit of flavour text in a news bulletin that uses the word. Nowadays modern adventure games give the player a short mission objective with an arrow pointing at the next waypoint, but in those days it was still common for games to give the player nothing and expect them to read masses of flavour text to work out what to do. I'm looking at you, original System Shock.

So I consumed all the flavour text in Deus Ex. None of it was useful because it really was just padding. But it changed me. Made me the man I am today. Taught me that Icarus had found me and I should run while I could.

"The question must be asked: is the global rise of terrorism a haphazard response to a decimated economy or is there a pattern? Does UNATCO face coordinated ideological opposition? Some groups - Silhouette in France, for instance - have declared a "Meme War," or "war of meanings" in their terminology. ... With sophistries and doublespeak, they portray "freedom" as "obedience," "democracy" as "tyranny," and UNATCO as the perpetrator of terrorism—an idea as shocking as it is reprehensible."

I remember playing that game and thinking "in the future they will have email and computers and the world wide web" and it blew my mind.

By derivation, cliché was originally a past participle, as you can see by the accent.

I am in the minority in accepting its use as an adjective, akin to saying "overused" or for that matter "passé," also past participles that function fine as adjectives. One can think of it as either "that which has become overused," or as simply "overused."

Compare "the departed" or "the accused," past participles that can function as nouns or adjectives without it causing much trouble. Consider "The accused murderer was acquitted" vs. "The accused is innocent."

Also in the age of movable metal type, commonly-used phrases were cast as a single block. These blocks made a clicking noise like when placed in a row of type. Hence, cliché. Onomatopoeia.

Once again, I've never seen or heard "that's so cliche" or the like.

You’d say “that’s so clichéd” instead.

I mean, like, yeah? Am I missing something here?

Attested in American Heritage dictionary circa 1950 but frowned upon by a majority of the usage panel.

https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=clich%C3%A9#:~:text=As%20is%20the%20case%20with,single%2Dspaced%2C%20and%20fated.

Good link— I had no real understanding of the etymology of stereotype, which is discussed there, too.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed hates “learnings” as much as we do