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

My friend mentioned previously texted me re her worries re some Liverpool match(she’s a fan, I’m not) and said “I would almost rather have City score and lose us the title than listen to those bottle job gunners tell us this is their year”.

Like! You were born in Boston! It’s very funny (to me).

still not buying the "hate the game not the player" argument on the basis that separating the speaker from the words they speak in a peeve thread about language use is not possible. it's baked in. suggesting otherwise seems disingenuous at best. more likely no one wants to be seen as a hater of powerless people.

and it’s everyone else’s problem, not yours
otm

had a perfectly decent night at work last night btw and asked people if i could get something started for them with absolute abandon and impunity

nice

"that eats" is just objectively bad, too much crossover with conflicting expressions like "eat shit" or "eat me" etc

"let him cook" is of course immortal at this point

also i think a lot of the appropriation of language from other cultures has to do with us living in a text-heavy environment. much easier to appropriate language in writing than to speak it out loud irl. (to gyac's point)

“I would almost rather have City score and lose us the title than listen to those bottle job gunners gooners tell us this is their year”

fixed

Oh Matt you are not going to like what the term “gooners” means now.

Separating the speaker from the words they speak in a peeve thread about language use is not possible. it's baked in. suggesting otherwise seems disingenuous at best. more likely no one wants to be seen as a hater of powerless people.

I think it really is possible and I resent the implication that anyone saying so actually just hates powerless people. We are literally talking about a two word phrase here. I wasn't even imagining servers saying it when I thought about it - my first scenario was someone saying it to me when welcoming me to their home and it still felt weird. I imagined myself welcoming guests at work because it is part of my role to greet visitors and offer them drinks and I always say either just Welcome! or Welcome to "place of employment". I don't really understand how this has blown up into something bigger than a simple phrase that has supposedly become popular.

lt isn’t possible, you are making bad excuses

That's fine you can think that but I truly believe it is and when I say I think the phrase sounds odd there is no larger meaning to that. At all. This is not about the people who say it and it never was. It's about a stupid phrase and nothing more. Tbc I am one of these powerless people in my job and I grew up in the hospitality industry and was a server for years so if anything I try to be extra respectful with any kinds of customer service ppl.

i think theres been a strong element of overzealous language policing on this one and the attack element on service workers- jobs most of us will have done in our lives- has been massively overstated

we all get an opinion on it, there's mine

ofc i strongly defend the right of all to language police in this of all threads

trying not to shit-stir here, but I actually thought the start for all this was a different post--not by ENBB--that was explicitly about servers

I kind of want to start a "curious phrases" thread as there are a couple of local usages I've been intrigued by lately. Everyone in Montreal (yes, I know literally tout le monde ici) has been saying "if ever" lately, and I can't figure out if it's a french crossover or I just never noticed this common expression before

you're not sure if its ever been commonly used before, if ever?

lol fair, but it's used more specifically like this:

"If ever there's interest"
"I am exhausted but if ever you were available"
"Lemme know if ever there's anything else I can help with"
"no rush, if ever you can send it along by Monday"

two of those are direct quotes from a francophone friend, but the others are from anglophones

thats quute normal but it is a bit jane austen, possibly via richard curtis, right?

xp start that thread so I can link my favourite Wikipedia page of all time

xps gentlemen, you can’t police language in here, the language cop thread

deems otm. also, this thread gets ridiculous quite often with the phrases that get complained about but why do we really believe there's a deep-seated contempt for servers on ILX of all places? it feels a lot like ENBB and/or everyone else being criticized for 'hating service industry workers' are having a lot projected onto them. why are we having the "This is what you REALLY meant" Olympics in here?

95% of this thread is making fun of things said in a work environment to begin with.

separating the speaker from the words they speak in a peeve thread about language use is not possible. it's baked in.

LL is 100% correct here

except the assumption is that the disdain for the phrase is disdain for everyone who belongs to the industry in which the phrase is heard, which is....a huge leap in logic.

Neanderthal otm

Oh Matt you are not going to like what the term “gooners” means now.

I looked this up and hmm yes, actually it's not too bad a metaphor for Arsenal's wait for a league title

like...I can only speak for me, but my initially assumption was that the phrase "welcome in" came from corny managers and executives making six figures, and was forced upon service workers to say, similar to how people who work at Firehouse are told they have to say "welcome to Firehouse".

and we spend most of our time in this thread mocking the out of touch nature of corporate speak.

except the assumption is that the disdain for the phrase is disdain for everyone who belongs to the industry in which the phrase is heard, which is....a huge leap in logic.

― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Friday, March 15, 2024 10:12 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Exactly.

Love to be lectured by people who would collapse if they had to do the work that people like LL and I do on busy nights at the bar/restaurant.

The phrase sounds fine to me, but one of the things I (lol) appreciate about this thread is that there are a lot of people from other English speaking places with regional differences in language! I totally respect and understand ENBB feelings about it and don’t see it as anything other than something she perceived as an awkward turn of phrase.

except the assumption is that the disdain for the phrase is disdain for everyone who belongs to the industry

I think it's a fair assessment, as I haven't really seen anyone who dislikes the phrase explain why they dislike it in linguistic terms* that would eliminate "the people who say it" as a contributing factor. if you're saying the usage is wrong but can't tell me why it is wrong purely in terms of language use, are you really talking about words?

like, if you ask me if I am racist I will say no, I am not. that doesn't mean you are wrong if you point out something I do is racist, and when that happens I should probably consider your take, because "I don't think I'm a racist, so nothing I do can be racist" isn't great.

*someone said the preposition was unnecessary, but... redundant and unnecessary words are used constantly and without critique in English, so that doesn't hold water as an explanation (for example, few of you are probably angry that I said "doesn't hold water" instead of the more concise "holds no water" that omits the redundant verb "do" and requires an apostrophe).

doesn't require an apostrophe

Love to be lectured by people who would collapse if they had to do the work that people like LL and I do on busy nights at the bar/restaurant.

Xposts - That is exactly why though - it is redundant and sounds unnecessary. Of course there are other examples but in this particular instance it seems unnecessary and sounds very odd. Sorry that holds no water but I do think that's exactly why it sounds a bit funny.

why only in this instance? if it is redundant and unnecessary you don't like, surely the most frequently redundant and unnecessary usages in English (like meaningless do) would make up the bulk of this thread. they don't.

It's not only in this instance but that's the one that was brought up and that everyone was discussing.

why did you include the unnecessary and redundant "it's not only in this sentence but" in your post, I thought you cared about eliminating such things

why did you include the unnecessary and redundant "it's not only in this sentence but" in your post, I thought you cared about eliminating such things

f. hazel, you're really going to compare this to racism? That's a bad (and problematic) analogy for a lot of reasons.

This is a thread about annoying phrases. It often involves phrases heard in the workplace. I and others have brought out own examples.

I would wager many itt bringing their own examples are in thankless jobs where they are underpaid and governed by toxic management.

I worked in the service industry for years and left it purely due to the toxicity and it's obviously gotten worse since then. That's not lost on me.

That doesn't mean "mentioning the phrase 'welcome in' is annoying" is an assault on the service industry.

But this is also a thread where it was believed that I actually wanted to ban restaurants so y'know what, fuck this thread

Also it's pretty gross to make ENBB a whipping person in all this

(and I was on team "who fuckin cares" when it comes to the phrase!)

omg

my specific bouef with her posts was the claim that you could separate disdain/contempt for the phrase from disdain/contempt for the speaker. that's just not true. suggesting that is disingenuous. if ANYONE would simply admit that they have unacknowledged/unexamined disdain for service workers (evidenced throughout this gargantuan thread) we could stop having this conversation.

the language is a proxy. like dress codes are a proxy.

I reject the idea that I have unacknowledged disdain for service workers because I find a particular turn of phrase strange. That is actually an insane and completely out of bounds claim to make. I will state again that I have been a busgirl, a waitress, a hostess and a bartender. I have worked 3 coffee shops. My mother's career was being a hostess. I have considered going back into hospitality so that is just not true. I can think a phrase sounds funny without having contempt for someone using it.

this is not about you, specifically

thanks for calling me insane though

if ANYONE would simply admit that they have unacknowledged/unexamined disdain for service workers (evidenced throughout this gargantuan thread) we could stop having this conversation.

"Confess! Confess!"

wow

I did not call you insane. I said that was an insane claim to make which it is. You keep saying that I clearly hate service workers which just is not true.

I cannot stand the phrase "cooperative learning" so I guess I have contempt for teaching?

LL, just as I came off like an asshole yesterday, you are coming off like an asshole today. You're not alone, but it's particularly unusual for you — I think you're one of ILX's most empathetic posters most of the time. This discussion is getting the better of you, for some reason, and I don't think you can see it.

hate to inform on the language cop thread, but did you all miss these other posts or something?

"What can I get started for you today?" is my personal "welcome in" of this past decade

***

"My name is Earl and I'll be taking care of you tonight."

Oh, thank god, Earl, I can't tell you how long I've waited for someone to take care of me.

***

I've already noted my dislike of "Are you still working on that?" "I'll be taking care of you" is just another one of those overused and awkward phrases to me.

***

"What can I get started for you" doesn't aggravate me, and I assume it's used to remind jerks there's a made-to-order process involved, but it does kinda feel like it's trying to disclaim responsibility for the meal? Like "look, I will initiate the process of your food being prepared, but honestly, a lot of this is out of my hands"

***

while we're picking on unfortunate wait staff, "that's going to be your menu" annoys me no end. It *is* my menu.

I am curious if there’s anyone here who hasn’t been a service worker at some point in their lives?

I don’t want to assume that everyone has had to be “the help” and have their language controlled/determined

I cannot stand the phrase "cooperative learning" so I guess I have contempt for teaching?

I am curious if there’s anyone here who hasn’t been a service worker at some point in their lives?

I never waited tables per se, but my first job at 15 was at Baskin-Robbins (ice cream store); I was also a convenience store cashier, worked in a bakery, and was a cashier at one of the food courts in Newark Airport, and at Barnes & Noble (they eventually moved me to the stockroom because I was tired of dealing with the public by then).

Nobody asked me, but I think it is possible to find a phrase weird or off-putting while still a) being 100% OK with other people using it, and b) understanding and appreciating how language evolves. Nineteen years ago on this very thread, I posted that "I kind of despise brain fart." And I still do! But that's my problem; I'm not going to judge you if you say it. The modern use of "eat"/"ate" has a similar slightly grating quality to me, but I'm simultaneously delighted by its existence.

It wouldn't have occurred to me find "welcome in" unusual (maybe because it's something I've heard often enough at restaurants without really registering it), and so it doesn't bother me. But the discussion on this thread, and the Eater article that was posted, made me realize that it is a little odd, in fact, and I can see how someone might bristle at it. I find that interesting! I don't doubt that some people are contemptuous of people who say phrases they dislike, but I don't think that disliking a phrase is intrinsically tied to contempt for its speaker.

i was at a restaurant today (in England) and the waitress and my friend the customer spent about 10 minutes in total apologising to each other