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?"

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

amazon.com referring to christmas as “gifting szn” — even spelled “season” it would still be gross

It's giving gifting

Tranche

in his battleship speech, Trump claimed to be a very aesthetic person

most of what is posted itt is complete projection

Otm

lol

Maybe not the exact thread for it but... when clothing manufacturers use non-descriptive words such as "regular" / "original" / "classic" / "natural" (all employed interchangably) to name certain fits unhelpfully.

(Specific example: Blundstones have a line of boots called "Classics" and another called "Originals".)

classic Kim Kimberly post

boneless couch

On the topic of "classics" vs "originals" I do a lot of shopping in Primark. I remember seeing a Happy Mondays t-shirt in Primark recently. I wasn't sure what to think. Did Shaun Ryder die this this? And I mean technically he's not dead, but the point stands. Does Shaun Ryder mind, given that it's Primark, or does he not mind, given that it's Primark?

But anyway I remember being mesmerised by a store display of all the different types of jeans:
https://www.primark.com/en-gb/a/inspiration/styling-and-outfits/the-womens-jeans-fit-guide

I remember standing there, on the ground floor, pondering the difference between the different types of jeans. There are so many. There's a type called palazzo that, as far as I can tell, appears to be another name for flared jeans, but obviously it can't be because Primark also sells flared jeans. There are baggy jeans and wide leg jeans, which appear to be the same except that the baggy jeans are slightly longer. If you buy baggy jeans with a 29" inseam are they actually 29", or does Primark add a couple of inches so that they're baggy? Are they 29", or 32"?

They also have barrel leg jeans which bulge out at the knees, which is handy if you have arthritis. Do you know how many types of jeans they list on that page? Ten types of jeans. That's how many. Ten types of jeans. I've managed to understand the difference between standard jeans and slim jeans, e.g. mid-2000s jeans, but that's not enough. Now there are ten types of jeans.

And yet a part of me wonders if cowhands back in the 1800s also had a big range of different jeans, given that they were hand-made and agricultural workers tended to be drawn from a diverse pool of people from all over the planet. Did jeans slowly consolidate into the handful of styles that existed when I was young? Are they now expanding again to meet consumer demand? Thus the range of possible jean designs resembles a light cone, wide then narrow then wide again. Society in general has progressed from the organic diversity of chaos, to the managed regularity of mass-production, and now to the artificial diversity of super-advanced mass production.

From cars that were hand-painted, to cars that were only available in black, to cars that were all the colour of the rainbow, and now to cars that are mostly only available in black or silver because they are the only two colours people actually like. The dust mites have been hoovered up, compressed, and now released, but with the edges smoothed off. Could it be that jeans are merely a mirror of human progress. Is the future contraction, or will jeans simply cease to matter.

satisfying post really, i am there. not sure if on topic, but close enuf.

also i have jean ennui

To understand the jeans department you have to know that for a solid fifteen years or so, women's jeans all fit like leggings, and you really had no choice but to go around with every contour of your lower body visible to all. What you are seeing in the women's jeans department is the long-awaited backlash to the Skinny Jeans trend.

they're all so wide I look like a toddler though. i can envisage my perfect cut but they have never materialised!

"so it begins" LotR movies came out like 25 years ago, give it a rest

been hearing 'kinetic' a bunch in a military strike context... Hegseth, Leavitt, different DC talking heads: "A kinetic strike" or a "kinetic action"

They all seem to be using it so they sound smarter or more authentically militaristic

they’re morons playing dress-up

"so it begins" LotR movies came out like 25 years ago, give it a rest

I had no idea this phrase was associated with LOTR.