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

This is the way the world ends, not with a "like," but a "right?”

When I was a kid I remember seeing something in an old joke book where a father says to his son "I've got two words I want you to stop using, one is 'swell' and the other is 'lousy'" and the kid says "sure dad, what are the words?".

Now I am the dad and the words are "OP" and "sus"

THANK YOU

my 13yo cycles through new superwords for “great” every month or so.

OP
brazy
dubs

does OP stand for something?

overpowered, like a weapon in a game

I kinda love Twitch lingo and emotes but I'm too old to say them out loud

I don't really mind sus, which I hear constantly from my 9-year-old. And it played a vital part in this exchange which I will probably remember forever:

-Look at that bus. It's sus. The sus bus.
-What's sus about it?
-...It doesn't look like a regular bus.

https://fachordscdn-16d90.kxcdn.com/static/chords/images/a/sus2/a-sus2-pos-1.png

Just about every time I've posted here, it's been some phrase that is either meaningless or where there was already some perfectly acceptable way of expressing the same thing. Here's an annoying phrase that actually documents a useful idea that nobody thought to keep track of until the last decade: swing-and-miss (not as a verb, but as a counting stat). I think tonight's WS broadcasters have said it 10 times already.

"Swing and a Miss" would be a good title for a big-band-plus-girl-singer album.

“whiff” gets the job done better imo

^ otm and also deeply versed in the lingo

i think a lot of podcasters say "right"

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, October 25, 2022 1:51 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

ime the worst offender of this is Nate Silver

Re "high-key," the slang usage is pretty recent but it has apparently used in lighting/photography contexts for a while.

https://books.google.com/books/content?id=aGDiSYdDmJYC&pg=PA49&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3sIOdpgjQZpiOjDXqYwbo1cTZX6A&w=1280

"Sunsetting".

haha -- did you also get the email from google analytics today?

I most certainly did.

"deep dive"

otm

deep deep dive
So-socialize

people who misuse "longue durée" as a fancy way of saying "long term" can gtfo

"deep dive"

what term would you use instead?

thought experiment
evidence-based investigation
snorkeling without a snorkel
(that it could mean any one is problematic?)

"something more than the superficial lip service i usually engage in"

snappy AND inviting

Deep-throat service.

In-depth exploration?

personally i've got no issue with deep dive? what's the problem?
sure you can say "in-depth exploration" but why bother when you can say "deep dive"?!

adults that refer to a group of peers as "kids" as a form of infantilizing comradery

I think these phrases are mostly scapegoats for do-nothing co-workers and managers who say things instead of do them, like phatic shirking

lol i read that as phatic shrieking, which also seems accurate. i love the verb shriek.

i have a coworker who says students need to learn to "task initiate". in meetings he talks about how we can help them "task initiate". he uses it out loud with students. "ok guys, you need to start thinking about how to task initiate today". these are seventh graders, so thinking about how to get started when a teacher gives you a task is a good skill, but the way he says "task initiate" drives me nuts. i think maybe it's the combination of new-fangled jargon for old concept (in my day we called it "getting started", and we walked uphill in the snow both on the way to school and the way back) combined with total disregard for english grammar

sure you can say "in-depth exploration" but why bother when you can say "deep dive"?!

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, November 28, 2022 7:44 AM (six days ago)

thank you for making me think about why this phrase annoys me ... because it does ... and I think these are the reasons why:
1. its trendiness / use by people/writers who are annoying in other ways as well
2. what follows is often not very deep tbh ... they might discuss something for a longer duration (e.g. more time, more words) than a summary, but it doesn't really go very deep. Like duration does not equal depth

the "conversation" "around" pretty much anything

join it!

brb just going to break down a silo or two

https://myfox8.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2018/04/silo.jpg?w=1280

you clearly know how to task initiate, Tracer!

the "conversation" "around" pretty much anything

I think this "speaks" "to" the wider cultural conversation around pretty much anything.

what we talk about when we talk about words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of us

'cope' and 'cry more'

"flop" instead of "dive"

deep flop

think the annoyance with "deep dive" is like when writers call a song a "deep cut" just because it wasn't a single, which is really fucking annoying, it's true.

not a word or phrase but i've finally found the name for a thing that bugs the shit out of me, partic on social media and that word is:

APORIA

as in:
"not sure why everyone's making such a big deal about the fact that i simply didn't like a movie"

YES YOU ARE actually, you know exactly why

my favorite response to shit like this btw is something along the lines of "huh really? i always thought you were pretty plugged in!"

i don't know, i have to admit that i don't see why that bugs you so much. if i had to guess i'd say you're spending too much time on social media, or perhaps you're reading too deeply into it?

it_is_a_mystery

aporia is a sweet important word in post-structuralism and i support its extension or i would but i can't put my finger on why not