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

Four Words: Use Other Words Please
"Use other words please."
Commonly used phrases that inexplicably bug you
Most irritating cliche/phrase/expression
"Taking Things to a Whole `Nother Level!"
words that annoy
Words that should earn the author a slap
PROVERBIAL and other tip offs to poor writing

-- caitlin (wpsal...) (webmail), December 23rd, 2003. (caitlin)

Oh yes, yes yes. I second that one. And the people who say it, say it over and over.

I also have a horror of people who write prolifically in all caps.

This is true.

But, this is a topic that should be dealt with routinely and harshly... the only way we can correct the language and suppress it's organic growth is by exposing and banning every new usage as it occurs... Isn't that what the French do?

Also: 'fridge,' girls who refer to each other as 'girl,' proactive...i'll be back when i think of more....

'poetic justice'. Used by the lazy to describe all 'justice' the speaker approves of, instead of a particular type. The adjective is rendered meaningless.

Agree re 'bird' for woman/girl, and lament its threatened return. Stinks of 'I'm being un-PC, where's my medal?'. Also the C-person uses it, which kinda ends the argument.

Wait, huh? Fridge is the thing you put food in, whats wrong with it?

I'm picturing him saying things such as "Would you like me to remove another beverage from the refrigerator for you, whilst we watch some association football?"

the word “win” itself should be binned at this point, along with the word “binned” when used by usa people.

Clearly American sportscasters need to read up on top sportbloke Mr McNulty.

there's another slightly more obscure meaning to 'win' that is kind of lost now - to arrive at your destination.

number 5 here
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/win

Passion project

What am I supposed to call it when I spend hours on woodwork and then nail a guy to it

An exception will be made

I feel like passion project is usually used with irony or outright condescension

but perhaps that's why it annoys the shit out of you

What am I supposed to call it when I spend hours on woodwork and then nail a guy to it

#NailedIt

I feel like passion project is usually used with irony or outright condescension

I get irrationally angered by the phrase "I didn't have that on my bingo card." An anger that, to be honest, I did not have on my bingo card.

Good one--started noticing that a few months ago.

That's been around forever but definitely has ramped up in recent years. My objection to it is conceptual: It suggests that a "bingo card" is something where you log events that you expect, as the statement always refers to something you didn't expect. But Bingo cards are not filled out by players, they are given to players already filled out. It's a game of chance. So the ostensible metaphor or analogy doesn't work.

I assume this is driven by the prevalence of things like Oscars bingo or whatever

xp i think that's the point. for instance, at summer camp you might have a bingo card with entries like, "saw a bald eagle," "tie died a shirt," "built a campfire," etc. so if your bunk mate elopes with the counselor and they go on a bank robbing spree, you might say, "well! i didn't have that on my bingo card!" meaning that it's so far out that it didn't previously seem possible/plausible

nb i'm not defending the expression

many of these more twitter-y phrases i only see online, but if i overhear anyone say them out loud it basically turns me into an overripe tomato for 10 minutes.

One expression I feel doesn't work is "thrown under the bus."

If you and another person are on a bus and you throw them off, they land behind the bus, or to the side. You can't throw them under it, unless you have some way to like lean way out and throw them inward, at an angle. While somehow holding a whole entire person several feet out from a presumably moving bus.

Even if you could throw them off the front of the bus, it seems like getting hit by the bus is the more likely outcome. Buses typically have low clearance for rider convenience in boarding.

Is this an open-top double-decker bus maybe? If so, why would anyone go with you to the upper level if there was a chance they'd be thrown off? And anyways that is still not being thrown _under_ it. You're just being thrown _off_.

Okay, so what if you're not on the bus and you're, like, on the sidewalk when a bus is coming, you would be just _pushing them in front of the bus_, not _throwing them under it_. Unless you somehow lift the person and rotate them sideways, then maybe you could sorta slide them under a bus like putting a pizza in a oven.

It doesn't make sense.

I always thought it meant metaphorically pushing someone into the path of a moving bus to save yourself in some fashion.

it does. ymp you’re being very picky. when people say they’re going to turn out the light are you like *pushes glasses up nose* you’re not turning anything, you’re pressing a switch, what you’re saying makes no sense

then maybe you could sorta slide them under a bus like putting a pizza in a oven.

I laughed for quite a while at this.

but jesus fucking christ people on the internet like to just hammer a phrase to fucking death

This is the issue for me with a lot of these phrases. It's not that I mind them on their own, but you just know you're never going to hear anything else. "Comfort zone", "wow factor", "iconic Maida Vale studios", it's so tiresome. I was watching a competition programme on the telly one day and one of the judges was talking about a contestant needing to bring the wow factor. Two of the judges said he had brought the wow factor, one of them said he had brought A wow factor, but not necessarily THE wow factor, and I had to turn it off. Just say you want to be impressed!

lol, I've heard "iconic Maida Vale studios" about three times in the last two hours.

one of them said he had brought A wow factor, but not necessarily THE wow factor

That's awesome.

we need a typology of wow factors

"I'm not crying, you're crying"

I'm sure it's been posted before, but "minimalistic". Something can be minimal, a preference for such things is minimalist, but the product of a minimalist mindset is something which is MINIMAL not MINIMALISTIC-ESQUE-ISH-STYLE.

I always thought it meant metaphorically pushing someone into the path of a moving bus to save yourself in some fashion.

Especially if they've just thrown their toys out of their pram.

Something can be minimal, a preference for such things is minimalist, but the product of a minimalist mindset is something which is MINIMAL not MINIMALISTIC-ESQUE-ISH-STYLE.

Oh yeah, thinking that longer "versions" of words are just the same but fancier drives me nuts. Simplistic instead of simple, singular instead of single, minimalistic instead of minimal -- this doesn't make you sound smarter or more important.

simplistic means something very different from simple!

same for singular and single actually. this is a strange contention of yours trishyb!

I think that’s trishyb’s point?

It is, yes.

see also: “within” as a fancier “in”

lol duh apologies for misreading

Elizabeth David, iirc, had the shit annoyed out of her by "crispy" when applied to food, because "crisp" is already an adequate adjective.

now i'm thinking way too much about apples vs bacon

Body butter

hmm, dunno what that is but I like it so far

Least favorite (mis)usage ever - "ON accident..." it's BY accident you fucking moron!!

...from 20 years ago. I hear more "on"s than "by"s these days.

Please tell me that isn't true.

by purpose

Just as ‘ginger’ jumped borders thanks to the interwebs, a phrase like ‘on accident’ gains traction outside the American south/US black ppl because of online conversations. Midwestern interjections like ‘ope!’ (combined oops/excuse me) are probably next up.

The audacity of ope!

On accident makes sense to me tbh … but it’s an informal way of speaking, and I could understand being annoyed by it used in a more formal context, like writing.

I grew up in Minnesota in the early 80s and went back for college in the early 90s and either “ope” was so ubiquitous I never noticed it or its relatively recent. In any case it’s new to me.

I believe the classic use case is "Ope lemme just scootch right past ya."

I heard “scootch” a lot and use it myself!

I wasn’t aware that ‘ope’ was part of my vocabulary before reading these posts.

Just this morning, I’ve caught myself saying ‘Ope, sorry’ at least three times, typically when someone else is trying to scooch by me. Maybe this is the Canadian version.

Heard some study years ago that basically every language has a version of 'huh', as in the mild acknowledgment of wonder. "Huh, I never heard that." And most of them sound like 'huh'
It's the closest thing to a universal word