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

So true, I have to be careful to remove excess "definitely" and "very" usage, and I still don't get to all the ones that ought to go. Verbally, with no hope of editing, I add these stupid "definitely"s to the point where I sound like some sleazy car salesman closing a deal.

**************

Here's one closer to grammar pedant stuff, an association I don't want because I don't have any sympathy for 99% of the usage that bothers them, but anyway. Where I live absolutely everybody says and writes "based off" rather than "based on". Like, nothing is based ON anything, it's always based off of something. "This movie was based off of a true story." "We decided not to do it based off of our financial figures."

Why does this usage in particular irritate me, when I couldn't care less about "could care less" or "irregardless"? I can't explain. Even the illogicality of it doesn't explain it.

it's become an area of general prepositional confusion-- you never know whether you'll get an "on", an "off", or an "off of"... at this rate, it won't be long before "based of" enters the lingo. (I'd like to give a shout-out to the perennially underused "based in", before it goes the way of the neanderthal)

social experiment: next time someone drops "based off" in a conversation or a meeting, look puzzled and ask them to repeat what they just said

**on 2nd thought "based in" strongly suggests location, which limits its general usefulness

Googling the phrase led me to this site. Parody or real?

http://www.omgfacts.com/lists/5514/Dr-House-is-based-off-of-Sherlock-Holmes

clickbait. not sure if that's a category of its own these days.

I'm getting used to "hot mess", but for a long time it had strong connotations of "diarrhea" for me.

i think it's supposed to? it's a euphemism for looking like shit, or something not entirely unshitlike.

relly dislike "creativity" or "creative" to describe a supposedly positive value in art, usually identifying a vague and purposeless unpredictability. It just seems to have so little to do with what actually makes art good.

"man _____" e.g. "man clothes" "man purse" "man bag" "man cave" "man boobs" "the man show"

^^^

Any variation of "Can I just ask a quick question?"

lol did not mean that as a dig against your poster name xp, i don't have a problem with it since it is its own expression

while we're on the subject, "creatives" to describe designers and the like >:[

have so had it with "the problem with"
1) kindly stop telling me what the problem is
2) the problem with the problem with the problem is the problem

spent time at a meeting trying to explain that what some people thought was "the problem" was merely a symptom of the actual issue we were discussing and it was very very very tiresome

Courtesy of dean burnett 2015:

No, no, no.

No. Na. Nein. Non. Nyet. Mhai. Illai. Não. Nee. Ne. Nope. Negatory. Nada. No way, Jose. Nil. Nu. Nie. Bu Dui. Iie. Nem. Nullus. Nej. Neen. And, in case any Klingons are reading this, Ghobe!

^this trope is for cunts

When I visited my folks, we took my daughter to a puppet show in suburban maryland and the woman who was kind of herding everyone into the theater (where most of the seating was on the floor) kept saying "Our style of seating is criss-cross applesauce, please move forward and we are sitting criss-cross applesauce." It made me never want to leave New York again.

wtf does that mean?

It means cross your legs. Also unfortunately referred to, in my childhood, as "indian style."

Which, it actually never occurred to me until now, was probably a reference to a caricatured yoga pose rather than Native Americans.

weird.

More likely Native American? My granny used to tell me off for sitting on my haunches, saying "You're sitting like a Chinee".

haha http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Indian_style

criss-cross applesauce (not comparable)

(childish, US, regional, idiomatic) (of sitting): cross-legged

Usage notes

Generally used by nursery school and primary school teachers to children, sometimes followed by “spoons in the bowl” to mean “hands in your lap”, strengthening analogy with a bowl of applesauce; alternatively, “spoons in your bowl”, “spoons in your lap”.

i've also heard pretzel-style lately

please move forward and we are sitting criss-cross applesauce

this is killing me

Yeah, that annoyed me when I first heard it too, when my kid went to nursery school. Gotten used to it though. Better than Indian Style. Now, he says they just say "cross-legged" or "pretzel-legs".

"Tailor-fashion" is kind of interesting. I've never heard that before.

definitely think of tailors in 19th century cartoons or children's book sitting cross-legged, at least in the UK

Yeah, it makes sense, since a lot of tailors probably sat on the floor to have more room. It's interesting that it was such a conspicuous way of sitting as to find its way into the language.

Not sure what's wrong with just using cross-legged tbh

I've never used anything else

offensive to christians iirc

cross-legged could imply legs crossed while sitting in a chair or with legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle

Yeah I use it for those too

It is also named after various plains-dwelling nomads: in English Indian style, in many European languages "Turkish style", and in Japanese agura (胡座 The sitting style of non-Han ethnics (particularly Turks, Mongols and other Central Asians.)?).

Lots of good options here.

xp

sure and why not but the difference explains why people may have adopted more specific terminology

"applesauce" is probably just a convenient mnemonic for people too stupid to remember what sitting that way is called, such as the obnoxious woman herding us into the theater

I say "sitting cross-legged on the floor" and all the alternatives itt are horrible, I'm open to other suggestions

Which, it actually never occurred to me until now, was probably a reference to a caricatured yoga pose rather than Native Americans.

lotus position is a totally different type of crossed legs though, couldn't imagine any teachers trying to force kids to do that

Working on hunting shirts or any other project, we tailors sit cross-legged, while the two seamstresses of our shop don't do so primarily because of differences in our wardrobes. Most depictions of tailors from the eighteenth century show them sitting cross-legged (still known elsewhere as "tailor style"). It's not hard to find the reasons. It allows you to hold your work in your lap, given that, unlike other artisans, tailors didn't work at a bench or table. Secondly, it allows you to spread your tools around you and in your lap for easy access. Thirdly, and I can vouch for this from personal experience, once you train your body to sit in this fashion, your lower back muscles tighten slightly, allowing you to sit for extended periods without leaning against a chair or fidgeting much. In fact, one theory about the name (sartorius; think sartorial, as in clothes) and nickname (tailor's muscle) for the longest muscle in the human body, in the thigh, has to do with sitting tailor fashion. The practice continued well beyond the 1770s, as you can see in this image of a Wichita, Kansas, shop from around the turn of the last century. (link)

après-ski

"think ____" used instead of "for example, ____" or "such as ____"

i find "think" to be very common in dumb bloggy salon/slate/atlantic/nytimes thinkpieces that are trying to be authoritative. i really don't like the imperative tone, the "think THIS not THAT" as a way to way to make a point. i can't find an immediate example since it is hard to search for on its own, but something like:

"and the boundaries between fashion and tech trends are blurring everyday - think apple watch and google glass"

think ____ sounds a lot like parenthetical read: ____

"_______ much?"

the woman who was kind of herding everyone into the theater (where most of the seating was on the floor) kept saying "Our style of seating is criss-cross applesauce, please move forward and we are sitting criss-cross applesauce."

I am annoyed by this even apart from the super annoying phrasing. I have a dodgy knee, I am not sitting on the floor in any formation for more than 2 minutes thanks

"utilize"

offensive to christians iirc

― Mordy, Monday, January 19, 2015 11:45 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A+ joke.

"_______ much?"

KILL

RAGE

*steam coming out of ears*

and thank heavens people have cooled it with the "got _____?"

"cow-orker"

it's funny cuz "cow" is in it

Yummy and, worse, yucky used in recipes and food blogs.