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

kudos to anthropology

well yeah...sorry it took looking at some other cultures to get (some of) us to realize our process of development was not "THE" process of development.

capitalism is a global system though. i think it makes sense to look at it as a whole instead of assuming that societies have their own culturally specific "capitalisms"

when people call men 'men' and women 'females'.

whenever i hear that, i always recall that rubbish skit by anti-pop consortium called 'tron man speaks' where someone says 'there's nothing wrong with females'.

They're strong as hell

estela OTM

"Lashes out". I am lashing out at people who use the phrase.

i'm lashing out rite now *eye flutter*

starting to feel like "zero fucks given" should be put into a fucking trash bag

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/716/134/b1a.jpg

irl lol

For consistency, I feel like the first line should say "thy fucks," right?

uptrend

committing acts of journalism, committed journalism, or any variant upon

having skin in the game

When some financial or political disclosure is described as "opening the kimono"

yeesh. never heard that one before.

"shit the bed"

it's just horrible and it doesn't make sense in the context it's used.

yeah, Dana Gould uses that one all the time and it's making me hate him

There was a lot of discussion on "opening the kimono" if not on this thread then I think on a thread about business speak. Consensus: gross and racist. Or maybe I just feel so strongly about how gross and racist that is that I'm projecting my feelings into a consensus. Either way, it's gross and racist.

Oh no I use "shit the bed" sometimes to describe a catastrophic or spectacular failure over which I had no control.

The way I've heard it used is: Shit the bed = Died

Oh, I don't care for that.

Lately, "veggies" has been bugging the shit out of me...

'veg'

prob preaching to the choir here but p much day in day out i rewrite civil service documents into plain english. the weak sentences and non-committal use of words is extremely sad and irritating, there are thousands of examples but off the top of my head:

certain (when used to actually create uncertainty. eg "you must follow certain measures" but no indication as to what these are.)
appropriate (you must take appropriate measures - again, i'm not telling you what these are)
relevant (see above)
classified (one of about 300 words that are only ever used in a passive way, like "these are classified as" - classified by who? - see also "considered", "expected" etc)

beyond that the passive voice has come to infuriate me, it is the tool of a moron trying to sound intelligent.

it's got to the point that now anytime i see anyone use it anywhere i bristle. like i submitted a short story recently and the reply was like "submissions will be assessed" or some shit - why would you write this way?

also there's something in civil service speak and its constant lily-livered need to hide the truth or avoid responsibility that breeds these sentences where the subject is even less than an inanimate object, a scheme or a grant or a law.

like this scheme requires you to do xyz - as if no person is behind this, it's the fault of a set of words on a page if you get fined, no human being was ever involved.

scheme be the scheme

also there's something in civil service speak and its constant lily-livered need to hide the truth or avoid responsibility that breeds these sentences where the subject is even less than an inanimate object, a scheme or a grant or a law.
<3 syntax-based sociolinguistic observations
and lily-livered otm

out of curiosity, why does your job require you to interpret this type of language?

i write for gov.uk - basically i take old 'guidance' for people on how to follow laws or do things they need to do and i turn it into plain english based on a style guide and set of layout principles. i mainly work on environmental/farming/food topics so there's some really archaic content up there, often really complicated scientific stuff as well.

here is an example - i hope it has no typos: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/issuing-plant-passports-to-trade-plants-in-the-eu

nothing is ever perfect though, eg in that one we link off to a ton of lists because after a lot of fighting and swearing this was a compromise we made to the people who are experts.

it's prob the most challenging/interesting/frustrating job i've done - it's full of conflict, everyone we work with hates us in the end. this just amuses me though because at the start they can be all positive and civil service in their tone, like "regards, etc" and i'm just thinking enjoy this last time we are civil, as soon as you see my draft you'll fucking hate me and that's how i know i'm doing my job, lolz.

How do you all feel about 'identify' taking a whole proposition as its object? e.g.

"Researchers identified that a gene that causes vitamin D deficiency may also cause MS."

"We identified that there were three issues to be addressed."

I read this all the time for work and it's incredibly common, but it never sounds quite natural to me.

xp ooh that's interesting! good to have a thick skin about stuff like this -- the people who write those sentences are just pissed that their obfuscation was removed. boohoo.

xp wrong just wrong

so wrong

xp ooh that's interesting! good to have a thick skin about stuff like this -- the people who write those sentences are just pissed that their obfuscation was removed. boohoo.

yeah that's it exactly. i'm lucky in that my team is very hardcore in the way we support each other - we all have the same problems and there's lots of solidarity - plus some hilarious meetings.

every semi-public service job i've ever had has involved managers constantly reminding me never to promise anybody anything if possible

During my civil service stint iI as tasked with editing our union newsletter written by our very stupid local president (she routinely put an apostrophe in Obama, which I think nicely sums up her written communication skills). I used a fairly light hand with it and just fixed the mistakes that rendered her copy unintelligible and she not only rejected ALL of my edits and sent out the newsletter in its original form (including the typos I'd fixed and the apostrophes in Obama) but I was informed I had overstepped my bounds by editing it at all. Even though the local VP asked me to do it.

Speaking of civil servants with hurt feelings.

I stayed late to finish that so I'm still bitter.

*I was tasked

Sorry. Typing with plastic things glitter nail polish soak off things on four of my fingers.

also v. true, so many poor stylists who take terrible umbrage if you try to correct their public pronouncements

lol, like o'bama? barry o'bama's irish bar.

every semi-public service job i've ever had has involved managers constantly reminding me never to promise anybody anything if possible

this is the golden rule! but not so bad i'd say if you consider the amount of meetings that go in the civil service. they hunt in packs. a classic is for you to go to a meeting expecting a 1 to 1 chat and there are 6 of them and 1 of you, all trying to take 4 hours of your day.

i just write things down and say "yeah sounds good, we work on the web tho so i need to check the web and think about it" - it is a real study in human behaviour that even when you have real conviction in their madness, six civil servants teaming up can make you concede things you wouldn't.

but the no promises rule especially applies to "external customers" as well, it's a big contributor to that shifty civil service tense people write in

i mean the thing i notice is that with members of the public no matter how much you say "might", "should", "hopefully" etc they still hear it as "i will do this for you right now" so the jokes on us really

that's interesting that promising nothing applies to external stakeholders too - for me the no promises rule would only be for internal. with external it'd be just that the language we use is extremely clear - "must" is the law, "should" is advice, we tend to avoid any guidance that is entirely based on "should" as far as possible.

i don't want to be too explicit here but let's just say for a long time there has been a mismatch between my sense of people's legal entitlements, best practice, and the resources of the organization i work for

a mismatch that is undoubtedly sector-wide i shd add

lol, like o'bama? barry o'bama's irish bar.

YES. This was at a time right after his first presidential election when the three blocks of government buildings that surrounded the government building where we worked were festooned with signs congratulating our hometown hero by name (spelled correctly) so that literally all she would have to do to double check her spelling was look out a window. Also we worked in this building:

http://interactive.wttw.com/sites/default/files/field/image/B13_a.jpg

which as you can see is mostly windows.

i'm lucky in that my team is very hardcore in the way we support each other - we all have the same problems and there's lots of solidarity - plus some hilarious meetings.

same same same at my job

i was thinking recently how accustomed i am to having people lie to me -- like, all kinds of people, that i have almost reached the point where i can detect the structure of a lie as it unfolds

"coeds" for college girls

I always figure writers use "coeds" because it's a word that sparks erotic frenzy in men from an earlier era

it's a) gross and b) archaic

I saw that word in a headline today and thought the same thing!

Even worse, the headline also included the word "groping".

"coeds" for college girls

yeeess I had real trouble understanding this usage when I was in the US.

LG I'm in a civil service (-adjacent) job too and the team really try to make sure we're writing in that active, plain way - it's something that is really appreciated by myself (joeks)
Our copy editors are lovely but kind of unusual folks. There are a few bits and pieces from old style guides that had hung on for way too long that we used to argue about, like 'web-site'.