Phrases you hate. Me: "Not so much."

[bif]

And "Anytime soon." It seems like every announcer on NPR is obligated to use both of these phrases in every story. How about you?

[hack89]

1. "At this time"

what's wrong with "now"?

And don't get me started on "utilize".

[CurtEastPoint]

2. at the end of the day and the fact of the matter is...

[Loryn]

4. At the end of the day.

Makes me want to throw stuff.

[ConcernedCanuk]

43. +1

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.
.

CC

[bif]

14. "At this point in time" is even worse.

[Spike89]

27. I hate the way most of my authors use utilize

I've come very close to resorting to blanket search and replace of the word, but there are (limited) instances where it is appropriate and I refuse to be pushed into killing a useful word just because pompous writers think using it in every sentence makes them sound important.

15 years ago, I could really get worked up over a misplaced comma, now I only really have hissy fits when clarity/readability is challenged--of course, that is a judgment issue too.

[MH1]

79. Yes!!! "utilize" - WTH is wrong with "use"?

Someone had some spare letters just laying around when they made up that word.

[raccoon]

3. "I could care less." It's supposed to be " I COULDN'T care less." nt

[MiddleFingerMom]

7. Maybe they COULD care less and you're not appreciating the depth of their compassion.

.
.
.

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.

[OriginalGeek]

38. I always ask them

"really? How much less?"

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. +1. n/t

[Quantess]

39. I read somewhere that both are technically acceptable

because "I could care less" is meant ironically.

[NYC_SKP]

5. "Cool story bro"

A liar accusation dressed up as a clever youthful meme.

[Scuba]

6. "Out of the box" and "it is what it is". Bizspeak mumbo jumbo.

[pipi_k]

15. Bizspeak crap

My last boss always wanted to know what the "upshot" was. When he wasn't actually TELLING someone what the "upshot" was, that is.

It got to the point where I wanted to do a "9 to 5" on him.

[Dash87]

57. Synergy!

[MH1]

80. I'll call your synergy and raise you an "innovation".

[Shrek]

8. "Don't go there"

A topic of discourse is not a geographical destination.

[Quantess]

37. That is outdated ´90s slang.

Send it back to the ´90s.

[MiddleFingerMom]

9. I changed doctors once, mainly because she neither listened to nor comunicated with me,...

.
.
.
... but my annoyance and skepticism with her began when I immediately saw
that she punctuated every 4th or 5th sentence with the unimaginative
bizspeak of "Now, here's the deal."

[NRaleighLiberal]

10. I had a zillion of them during my consulting days - thankfully, I seem to have forgotten them!

not too happy with "make no mistake" and "let's be clear" - because it usually means a bullshit alert is needed!



My main work pet peeves were things to do with value propositions and mission statements (so much time on so many words that mean so little)

[NYC_SKP]

21. OMG.... Mission Statements....

Especially (for me) in education, where 7 or more people all want to get their favorite buzzword in and the result is some mish-mooshy word salad that nobody outside of that group means.

I posted about one such mission statement last year:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11242574

And if makes me sick that none of the students or parents at that school would have a chance in hell of understanding any of it.

OT: I want one of these:

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. NPR is not going to admit that its education "reportage" is influenced by the Gates Foundation...

... "anytime soon".

[femmocrat]

13. "You don't seem to understand."

That one makes my temperature sky-rocket. How insulting.

[Populist_Prole]

23. Yeah that one really burns my ass

What they really mean by saying that is: "Your view is not my view, and I don't like that"

[ConcernedCanuk]

44. I know one person who says that constantly to me.

.
.
.

I keep telling them YOU ARE NOT LISTENING!

and while I try to explain something,

they keep interrupting before I have finished relaying my message/story . . .

So - Who does not understand here? -

If they won't shut up long enough to listen to the facts,

how can THEY possibly "understand"???

SHEESH!

CC

[pink-o]

16. It "literally" blew my mind.

No, it didn't. Otherwise there'd be blood on the ceiling.

[Bucky]

77. Helpful subtitute for that one...

correct people politely by saying "I think you mean it literally blew my cousin"

[pipi_k]

17. If anyone ever again

uses the phrase "fiscal cliff", I fear I'll have to plead insanity for what I might do to him.

That, and the word "resolve", which we must have heard a zillion times during the Dubya years.

[NYC_SKP]

18. "Twenty-first Century Skills" (in the Education Industry)

And a zillion other buzzwords....

This kind of bullshit is evident on the banner above the entrance to a LA unified K-6 school.

I wonder if anyone, never mind the students, knows what it means....



http://www.democraticunderground.com/11242574

[Spike89]

29. The soup I swim in every day

I'm a book editor (also spent 8 years editing our magazine) for a non-profit ed-tech organization. I'm aghast that otherwise intelligent, literate people would say things such as "we've got to teach children to live in the 21 Century," "21st Century learning is the cornerstone..." or "we welcome students into our 21st Century learning environment".

I also detest most references to "digital natives", especially when they are really implying that somehow children are born knowing how to effectively use technology because they happened to be born in the 21st Century. The term was once useful, but it has almost no meaning anymore. Even older teachers today have mostly been using technology longer than their students have even been alive.

[Doc_Technical]

19. The victim was kinda shot,

and was taken to a hospital where he sorta died.

[sharp_stick]

20. "Thrown Under The Bus"

It's an annoying phrase turned into a useless cliche and as overused as "The bottom line is" "At the end of the day" etc.

It pisses me off almost as much as the pricks adding the word gate to the ass end of every scandal to come around the corner. That should be a hanging offense.

Personally I think anyone using the phrase should be physically tossed underneath a bus.

[raccoon]

60. The bottom line is, at the end of the day, you might be thrown under the bus. nt

[LeftishBrit]

22. Until a couple of years ago, 'targets'. Now, 'strategic'. EVERYTHING in the UK is strategic now!

Last edited Thu Jun 20, 2013, 06:03 AM - Edit history (1)

[Populist_Prole]

24. "I'm just sayin"

The ultimate thought terminating cliche; the ultimate weasel words by someone who is not humble enough to admit they're full of shit. Infernally annoying.

[datasuspect]

25. "Really? Really?

"Wow. Just wow."

those make me want to unglove my pimp hand.

[Squinch]

66. Ahhhhhhhh!!! "Wow just wow" I HATE that.

That and "Fail" which I always think means, "I disagree with you, but I don't have the skills to express that thought."

[Ron Obvious]

26. "Homes" when they really mean "houses"

It's real estate marketing speak that's crept into the language everywhere.

"300 homes burnt down."

No, 300 houses burnt down. When you are in your house, you're AT home.

[Art_from_Ark]

50. Sometimes a home is an apartment

or a duplex. A 50-family tenement, for example, would contain 50 homes, but not 50 houses.

[Ron Obvious]

56. Don't you go being all rational on me, buddy!

They could easily say 30 houses, 12 apartment blocks, 4 duplexes and a shed burned down in last night's fire without resorting to emotionally manipulative real-estate pimp lingo.

[Art_from_Ark]

62. Speaking of sheds,

have you heard the latest composition by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson?

[Ron Obvious]

63. Absolutely!

The 8 Flying Circus sets were the first DVD's I bought around '98 or so.

And now for something completely different: a man with three buttocks.

[Art_from_Ark]

65. And here's a man with a humongous probiscous

[Ron Obvious]

67. Anti-Semitism!

I have actually used Throatwarbler Mangrove as a username before elsewhere. As well as Naughtius Maximus, I'm pretty sure in the dialup BBS days.

There's a number of us here with Python-inspired names I've seen.

[mokawanis]

28. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I know what you're saying. I'm fucking sitting here listening to you talk.

[progressoid]

34. Ugh, yes.

And it is used to punctuate the most inane part of a story. It's not like they are trying to explain string theory.

[Aristus]

30. "Iconic".

When did everything become 'iconic'?

[GoCubsGo]

31. "We're pregnant."

When it refers to a male-female couple. Sorry, but last time I looked, only one of you is capable of being pregnant.

[LeftishBrit]

47. Maggie Thatcher notoriously announced, 'We are a grandmother'.

[raccoon]

61. She thought of herself as royalty, and was using the royal we. nt

[bif]

32. And, "In a few minutes from now."

As opposed to "In a few minutes from 5 minutes ago?"

[Mr.Bill]

33. Long story short. n/t

[Generic Brad]

35. "And whatnot"

That is the strangest filler phrase I routinely encounter.

[Quantess]

36. "You had to be there."

Okay, but... it's still not making your boring, rambling, story seem funny.

[Inkfreak]

40. "Sorry, but....."

I can't stand when someone starts off saying an opinion or view with that. Why would you apologize for speaking? It just bothers me.

[DebJ]

41. "whatever" accompanied by rolling eyes on a young isolent face n/t

[ConcernedCanuk]

42. "whatever" from ANYONE

.
.
.

young, old or anywhere in-between.

CC

[ConcernedCanuk]

45. "Collateral Damage"

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.
.

no explanation necessary methinks.



CC

[TorchTheWitch]

46. using the words "seen" and "saw" in the opposite way

As in: "I seen a horse yesterday." And "I haven't saw you in awhile." I see people on the net do this ALL the time even when they've otherwise demonstrated a normal literacy capacity. Drives me batty.

[pinboy3niner]

48. "Discuss"

As in the last line of a post that places the author not as a participant in the discussion, but as a professor directing his students.

[ConcernedCanuk]

53. "Ask Me Anything" should be there too methinks.

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.
.

CC

[pinboy3niner]

54. That one's not so bad

It can make for a funny Lounge thread.

[galileoreloaded]

49. regular people that say POTUS. i watched the West Wing too, but you aint Secret Service. nt

[Paladin]

51. "It is what it is."

I think "It is what it isn't" has a better ring to it.....

[MizzM]

52. What gets my goat is...

TRUST ME! I always feel that it is a condescending expression, that you're too dumb to grasp a concept so rather than have to spend any more of their precious time explaining, it's easier just to say "trust me." People who say that probably don't know their ass from their elbow.

[RedCloud]

55. "You owe me (such and such."!

Really? Isn't this the land of the free?

[Apophis]

58. "A whole nother," "all of a sudden," and "irregardless."

Oh, and "I could care less."

[MH1]

81. Hey, what's wrong with the first two?

"A whole 'nother" is just dialect, like "y'all" or "y'uns" (not sure where to put the apostrophe in that one, actually). I grew up saying "a whole 'nother" and still catch myself saying it at times. But it does have a specific meaning.

I agree with you on the last two.

"Irregardless" is stupid, not a word, and if it were a word, it would be a double negative and mean the opposite of what people who use it seem to think it means.

"I could care less" has been thoroughly discussed upthread.

[Myrina]

59. "Lather, rinse. Repeat"

Can we PLEEEEASE retire that one?

[Demoiselle]

64. "I feel badly about that."

No you don't. The only way you can "feel badly" is to put on a blindfold, caress a potato, and declare it to be a puppy. THEN you're feeling badly. If you're sad...you feel bad! Thank you for giving me one more chance to air my pet linguistic peeve.

[Sognefjord]

68. Just the word "stakeholders."

It seems to be used exclusively by those opposing public education by referring to a group of mythical people who would be upset by any increase in funding for it. They must not be offended so it as used as an excuse for stiffing educators. Every time.

[MH1]

82. As a software jockey, I would point out that "stakeholders" has an actual meaning and purpose.

That is usually not applied correctly when selecting those people (supposed "stakeholders&quot to be involved in a major project.

[csziggy]

69. "At the turn of the century" usually meaning circa 1900

That's more than a century ago - there's been another century turned! Tell us the DATE!

Recently it seems that many commentators are starting every sentence with "So...". Maybe the are just playing for time while they think up what they want to say, but it's still irritating.

[Morning Dew]

70. "My bad"

That expression sounds like baby talk.

[sibelian]

71. "How's that working out for you?"

RAGE.

[sibelian]

72. "I see what you did there."

ARRRRGH! More RAGE.

[LNM]

73. "No problem" or "not a problem"

I ask a waiter for a glass of water. They always reply "No problem" or "not a problem" as if I'm burdening them but they're kind enough to forgive me. I'm sorry but that's your job.

[mysuzuki2]

74. "o, I don't want to have sex with you"

I HATE it when a woman says that to me.

[Bucky]

75. Sneaking suspicion.

[Bucky]

76. "Do you want to go with?"

Not unless your preposition has an object

[kwassa]

78. Awesome.

The only adjective my boss knows.

[Tom_Foolery]

83. Young teenager...

Have you ever seen an old teenager besides Dick Clark?

[Flaxbee]

84. a friend of mine would always say "another words" for "in other words..." and

it didn't bother me so much, as make me laugh once I figured out what the heck she was saying.


I really do NOT like books or articles being called "good reads". Nor do I like the term "folks". So any phrase starting with "folks" makes me gnash my teeth.

[Arctic Dave]

85. Any of the in vogue militaristic lingo bullshit

that has crept into business.

[NoPasaran]

86. "Speaking Truth to Power"

Also "And so it begins"