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

Didn't someone white and British get embroiled in a social media storm recently when their acceptance speech at an awards ceremony used this trope, making some people, mainly Americans, indignant, their reading being that it was implying he hadn't come from a position of privilege? Can't think who it was now.

Answering my own question, it was Harry Styles. He didn't actually name where he was from, he just said “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often".

https://www.nme.com/news/music/harry-styles-people-like-me-grammys-speech-earns-backlash-3393823

do people from location x get to self determine whether international superstardom is strange for them or not

I suspect a lot of people who say stuff like this are simply marveling at how they were once unknown outside of where they come from, and perhaps still primarily think of themselves as a person from that place rather than as a global celebrity.

Exactly.

Sort of a mild version of imposter syndrome.

Not bad for a person from New York city

Not bad for a person from Beverly Hills

The Harry Styles thing was pretty funny because it's left entirely to the reader to decide what he actually meant by "people like me".

"people who can't shit in war movies"

she was only a grocer's daughter

"pretty much exactly"

pretty fly for a Sheffield guy

"you are a fucking amazing group of product managers, i just want to say that"

"You have the day you deserve".

not because it wasn't an effective 'fuck off' used against people who were abusive or awful people, but now it's once again been co-opted and seems to be used in situations that don't even remotely warrant such a level of aggression, like someone getting your order wrong at Wendy's or arguing whether someone was offside or not.

You know what I hate?

I hate "as [so-and-so] might put it" ...when the phrase that so-and-so "might" use is something the person wrote/said/sang ONCE (even if it was very famous).

My long-time annoyance at this was re-triggered by this sentence, in reference to the summer of 1974 in American politics: "It was, as Charles Dickens might put it, the best of times and the worst of times." Really? As though that weren't just a sentence in one of his books, but the dude's fucking catchphrase or something.

― jaymc, Thursday, June 30, 2011 4:48 PM (twelve years ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM

What's funny about that Gopnik excerpt is that he's quoting himself. Like hey, this phrase I just came up with reminds me of Sergio Leone.

xps not otm imo!

you're just complaining about a careless use of the word "might" really?

As Jon Anderson might say, "yes"

fair

well, Adam Gopnick is a total hack

https://i.imgur.com/X9PsTeG.jpg

I've been getting inundated with cold-call sales emails and they all talk like this

why do you answer them?

oh oops, missed the "emails" part ... n/m

"lovely jubbly"

in correspondence from my mobile phone provider no less

"The blob"

I mean "the deep state" is a stupid expression but it least it sounds dramatic. "The blob" is the kind of Eton-level schoolboy joke phrase you could imagine a bunch of Tory tossers chortling about because they mistakenly think it's funny. In fact you don't have to imagine it, it's what they publicly do.

"Brits"

Fair enough if an American uses it but I've just heard a Sky reporter use it. It would be a bit like if a US reporter referred to Americans as Yanks in a serious news report.

I think that battle is lost. There's a new generation that doesn't think it makes us sound like cunts.

Rather that than Britishers

It would be funny if a Sky reporter said "Britishers" though. And "Englanders".

Whereas if they say Britishes, we know they lurk here.

I'd like to not read or hear "The British People" ever again.

What's wrong with Britons? No, don't answer that.

"I'm keeping a list of who is silent"

'that's my happy place'

Surely it’s been mentioned in this thread before, but I crawl within myself and die when I see “so I did a thing” on social media.

Poms is the correct way to refer to the brits fwiw

+1 on 'so I did a thing', major barf

I am fine with it depending on the thing… if it is related to the Carpenter movie I will generally lol

"the conversation around (x)"

"Do better"

English, ersatz English, Anglos, exbrits.
Disolvers of the holy bond that United the kingdom.

As the nation dissolves into smaller city states one will be known by the area one comes from. Bound to happen.
Or become more evolved and become Europeans again innit

"my guy"

social media posts that start "i don't know who needs to hear this but"

or sometimes "i don't know how many of y'all need to hear this", these type of people always call you "y'all" even if they come from fucking dunedin or somewhere

"Louder for the people in the back"

doo rag!!!!!

amazing to see you here

i agree completely btw

All of these are terrible but "do better" might be the worst. If someone says that you can be guaranteed they're a self-righteous asshole.

"y'all" seems to be everywhere.

It’s fucking abysmal, that, but I guess not everyone speaks a prestige dialect that has a native second person plural. 😎

Tell me about it