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

.... if that makes sense.

tbh 'if that makes sense' is ultimately arrogant, rather than humble. If it didn't make sense that way you wouldn't have said it that way. If you think you were unclear, then you'd rephrase. So you either don't care enough to fix your lack of clarity, or you do actually think it's pretty clear (this is more likely) but that the person listening is a cretin who can't follow your heroically nuanced train of thought

i say this all the time fwiw

... if that makes sense

I think it gets used out of insecurity, but an insecurity ultimately born of thinking you're smarter than other people and worrying about how they'll perceive you.

it is entirely possible to not know if what you said was clear.

especially if you frequently work among people with different learning styles and personalities who don't react the same way to you as others do. an aire of superiority isn't inherent in that statement IMO.

If you're not sure you were being clear, then clarify! don't put the responsibility on the person you're speaking to! to like, raise their hand and admit that actually, no it doesn't make sense, which takes a more than a bit of courage particularly if their status is lower than yours or they're not comfortable speaking up in public

'sorry, sometimes i speak quickly because my mind is just so amazing and i make cognitive leaps that other can't really keep up with, are you with me? good good"

especially if you frequently work among people with different learning styles and personalities who don't react the same way to you as others do. an aire of superiority isn't inherent in that statement IMO.

― Neanderthal, Monday, August 1, 2016 3:14 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This happens to me all the time now that I'm out of the office world and into a public school so far outside the city center that a lot of the staff are basically like the ppl from my hometown (pop. 4300) who never left.

And yes I DO wish I could stop phrasing everything like I'm talking to 10 year olds but so far experience suggests that I will only get in trouble because whoever I'm talking to won't understand a thing.

completely wrong on "does that make sense" - as mentioned upthread it's a polite way of checking that you're not explaining something in a completely unclear way.

it's a bigger problem to just keep talking with no space in which to allow someone to ask a question, most people won't ask questions if you do that. the truth of explaining anything is that it often doesn't make sense. stupid questions are usually the best questions. the amount of times i'm at a meeting about say "publication draft function" or whatever and i say after five mins "okay i'm going to be the stupid guy, what is the publication draft function" and half the other people there are like "yeah i was wondering that"... the amount of times that happens makes me think it probably happens even more than i think.

A few years ago I had a training project where I spoke to 100 people at a time, with essentially no idea how much prior knowledge they came to the talk with, or what they wanted to get out of it. By a perverse accident of scheduling I nearly always got the sleepy after-lunch slot. Lately I find myself addressing teams of 10-20 people, in three different countries, with no idea of what they think about what I'm saying. Also they have almost no incentive to pay attention or do what I ask of them.

"Does that make sense?" is a nicer way of saying "Is anybody listening?"

Also "Am I getting through? Is this too much detail? Not enough detail?"

So Tracer, it's insecure but it's not born of arrogance - rather, desperation.

xxxpost. checking in to see if something makes sense is a common training tool, though - far better than someone just assuming that everybody understood it and barreling through without checking in. Something might make perfect sense to me, in my head, the way I said it, and not to someone else. Checking in then gives you the opportunity to explain the concept differently, or break it down to a more granular level. Condescending would be assuming they needed that added level of explanation to begin without checking in.

Granted, I don't say "if that makes sense" because it's too passive, but I use "does that make sense?" which requires a response. Far better than "do you understand?", which can imply that the fault is with the learner if they don't. but regardless, I think reading arrogance into that statement = reaching. there are also public speakers who lack confidence who say this not because they consider themselves the smartest guy in the room, but because they actually lack confidence expressing themselves. I have many colleagues who hate presenting who say things like this. some people might say it out of arrogance, sure, but it isn't this absolute thing.

Yeah and it's not like there's a "clarity" button one can just push, because different things will be clear to different people.

"If you're not sure you were being clear, then clarify!" is like "If you're not sure your album is good, just make it better!"

like communication is a two-way street, it's not about you assessing your own view of how clear you're being on the fly, it's you legislating for the fact that the words you're using have to go into the mind of another person, who's got a different brain, had a different day, does a different job, etc etc, along with a few thousand other factors that might affect the clarity of what's being said.

xpost otm everyone

xxxpost. checking in to see if something makes sense is a common training tool, though - far better than someone just assuming that everybody understood it and barreling through without checking in.

exactly! the idea that you wouldn't allow time for questions is crazy.

And yes I DO wish I could stop phrasing everything like I'm talking to 10 year olds but so far experience suggests that I will only get in trouble because whoever I'm talking to won't understand a thing.

― If authoritarianism is Romania's ironing board, then (in orbit), Monday, August 1, 2016 11:22 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

precisely. in my situation, the people I train have often been treated like cattle throughout their career, shoved into trainings that are far too short, bounced back and forth between teams on a moment's notice. they actually appreciate a facilitator who slows things down and actually gives them the opportunity to indicate something wasn't clear, and have it explained to them in a conversational way that doesn't undermine their intelligence.

some analogies that have worked in one class don't work in another - it's not an exact science. Sometimes what you say can be crystal clear to one person and not understood by another. This happens frequently, actually. sometimes nobody gets it. sometimes everybody gets it.

people found me much more condescending and distant as a facilitator when I created what I thought were perfect training materials, delivered them in what I thought was a perfect way, and assuming that because I did everything perfectly they were following along, just throwing in an obligatory "any questions?" periodically so I could tick that box off.

btw - "any questions?" will almost always yield far less questions than asking either "does that make sense?".

-either

I don't think "if that makes sense" always means that the person is worried about being unclear whereas the thought is perfectly clear in their own heads. It can also mean that the person is experimenting with the thought in question, and open to its being challenged. It isn't just about clarity, it's also about the validity of the thought.

agree!

there are two clear usages:
strategic, as i have described and has been verified by in orbit and others
pedantic, which does feel insulting and self-important when you are on the receiving end

could it be that these two things are actually the same, and one is from the perspective of the speaker and the other is the perspective of the listener, only they are different speakers and listeners? yes! i believe so. ...if that makes sense
(lol)

lol

look i'm exaggerating a bit but honestly... use other words. it probably doesn't help that my boss uses this phrase literally 5-10 times per meeting.

not related, but another usage that annoys - "The 1800s" to refer to the entire 19th century, and the like. I know it has a long history, but it's confusing - "the 1890s" clearly refers only to 1890-1899, so "the 1800s" refers to 1800-1809, case closed. It also suggests a really imprecise relationship to history, as in this article I'm reading about a photo project to make a Google Street View of "New York in the 1800s" - well, clearly these images are going to be from quite a range of times, which would be something useful and maybe thought-provoking to keep in mind as you use this piece of software. In this situation, "the 1800s" might as well just be "those old-timey times."

Still thinking that "does that make sense?" much more acceptable than "...if that makes sense".

However, along those lines, more work-related speak that I hate: Long statement, particular regarding some new idea which hasn't been discussed or agreed upon, but ending in "right?"

For example, "This month we've seen a lot of improvement, but our goal of 100 dead rabbits per day means more emphasis on sharper knives and bigger traps, right? There are a lot of ways to make this happen, right? We've heard the goals that management is pushing down, right (notion of this actually being a question is thrown out at this point), and because of the firm-wide objective, right, of ensuring as many dead rabbits as possible, right, we're leveraging the resources from the Mammal Removal group."

This kind of management-speak is progressively more effective the longer the manager speaks without interruption. By the end of a long rant, you've been overwhelmed by the number of points taken for granted as having been "right", that you keel over in desperate submission.

I use "if" and "does" interchangeably and frequently when teaching, especially when talking to students individually. I teach web and design classes so I'm often trying to explain abstract or totally unfamiliar ideas about file structure, how browsers load and display sites, image resolution, etc.

I'm often using analogies or examples and check in a lot to see if how I'm explaining something works with their level of familiarity and how they personally process information to come to an understanding of a concept. They come from all sorts of backgrounds and have wildly different ways of understanding how things work and I want to know if I should try a different tactic.

Usage #1, speaker

one of my philosophy professors always said right in the form of a question

especially as he would lecture with a contemplatively look

philosophizing

walking from one side of the room to another gazing at the floor

man i loved that guy

i know this is petty and i try to be a descriptivist but ppl using portentous as a synonym for pretentious drives me crazy - not least bc i think a lot of ppl use portentous for pretentious reasons ("pretentious" being too common-use to appeal to them).

"adulting"

xp ?? do they in any sense mean the same thing? idgi

Mine: People saying 'mischievious'

not according to the OED they don't but ppl still (and i see this consistently) use portentous to mean pompous/grandiloquent etc. and smart ppl who should know better. which is why i don't think they're just confusing the two words - i think they really think portentous can be a more sophisticated way of saying pretentious.

I'd forgotten about it implying 'pompous' as always think of it as 'portending' something (thanks, English GCSE!) so... I guess? I do not like it though

It doesn't is what I'm saying. It's just about portent. But that's not how I see it used

yeah there's probably a technical word for this - a word gradually acquires a new usage because it happens to sound similar to a word with a different meaning

at some point with enough usage then the new "meaning" becomes legitimate i guess, i.e. dictionaries will give it, however rooted in straight wrongness this process is

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-jej1.htm

this piece about "jejune" is a little dry (ironically) but it details an instance of a similar process

It's the same confusion people show when using "reticent" versus "reluctant."

yes - and in both cases you can kinda understand why the slip is happening beyond just the words sounding similar. something being portentous - full of mystery and foreboding - could kind of strike one as pretentious. being inhibited or reserved is a kind of reluctance - to speak. but what really bothers me about portentous and pretentious is that it's confused by ppl who really should know better - ppl who do know the word pretentious but choose not to use it in favor of a different word that means something else entirely.

i usually look askance at people using "pretentious" as an insult anyway so

yes it does seem vaguely anti-intellectual which is maybe another reason pseudos try to replace it w/ portentous which sounds like it may carry a more neutral tone?

at some point with enough usage then the new "meaning" becomes legitimate i guess, i.e. dictionaries will give it, however rooted in straight wrongness this process is

it looks like this has already happened, if I put "portentous definition" into google then it gives me the following:

adjective
- of or like a portent; of momentous significance.
"this portentous year in Canadian history"
synonyms: ominous, warning, foreshadowing, predictive, premonitory, prognosticatory, momentous, fateful; More

- done in a pompously or overly solemn manner so as to impress.
"the author's portentous moralizings"
synonyms: pompous, bombastic, self-important, pontifical, ponderous, solemn, sonorous, grandiloquent, declamatory, overblown, overripe, inflated, rhetorical, oratorical
"Dr Chen muttered some portentous dialogue"

NV: catachresis?

Feel like the AP has just given up lately.

http://i.imgur.com/DA7yQEC.jpg?1

Puffin - yeah i guess so altho i don't think catachresis covers the "word ends up acquiring its misuse as a new valid definition" element

That waitlist (n) wait-list (v) kind of thing doesn't bother me at all.

Lots of compounds do similar costume changes when used in different ways. Mostly they tend to close over time, but they do so by degrees.

Compare: "She owns a small business." Noun. Vs. "She is a small-business owner." Compound modifier. Hyphenated to avoid potential ambiguity over whether she's small or the business is small.

Is there ambiguity introduced by wait list vs. waitlist vs. wait-list? No, not really, but it isn't weird on its face to have the noun close faster than the verb.

Ugh, so glad wait list and wait-list haven't made it across the Atlantic yet. Give it time though.

I'm very annoyed by people who mis-pronouce things in a jokey way too often, and then begin insisting that their pronunciation is correct and is the one you must use in their earshot.

Person a: Have you seen this bio-pic? (pronounces bio-pic as a normal human would)
Person b: You mean a biopic? (pronounces it like a piece of medical equipment)

This also goes for people who say Spiderman the way one would say Lieberman. It may have been funny once.

what kind of people do you hang out with

lol

I said "biopic" once in high school and a kid said "bio-pic? I think you mean biopic [to rhyme with myopic]" I wonder whatever happened to him

eaten by a lion