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

"where do we go from here?" "what does this mean?" and other tribal celebrity death cult language. the taking very seriously or AV Clubbing of pop culture.

http://www.avclub.com/article/definitive-meme-2016-was-fuck-2016-246823

ha

I'm currently very down on "livin' the dream." You ask someone how they are, and they say "I'm livin' the dream, pal. Livin' the dream."

"Teamwork makes the dream work" is even worse.

But I heard a businessspeak phrase yesterday that intrigued me: "the wolf that's closest to the wagon."

I often hear "the long pole in the tent" to mean "the thing that we need to figure out before anything else can get done."

Sometimes I hear of "sharks in the water" to mean "unresolved things we may need to worry about soon."

But "the wolf that's closest to the wagon" is different from either of those. It means "the most immediately pressing problem."

Now when it's fresh I confess I kinda like it. But if I hear it five more times it will probably begin to wear on me.

Jesus christ corporate drones are REALLY DESPERATE to connect with some kind of life-or-death frontier past with this imagery.

"Radical Self-Care"

Haha, I hate "self care". I've seen it mostly around sensitive subjects so maybe that's not nice but a lot of this language seems designed to be annoying.

"Radical Self-Care"

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, December 6, 2016 10:18 AM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i love this, and just "self-care"

7 years of therapy will do that to you

"low-hanging fruit"

i've been hearing this for so many goddamn years in every job i've had

Jesus christ corporate drones are REALLY DESPERATE to connect with some kind of life-or-death frontier past with this imagery.

Okay, but sports metaphors are just as tired imo, and lots of people play sportsgames. Isn't it just as grating to say that someone is "in the on-deck circle" or "quarterbacking this project"? Plenty of imagery is not directly related to the thing you're actually doing; witness restaurant workers saying they're in the weeds or a driver has his or her head in the clouds.

i misread that and thought you said "on the deck circle" and i laughed out loud and kinda want to use this now

"hey, keep your head up on the ball, you're on the deck circle mister!"

just need to bottom this out

i saw a cafe the other day which specialised in unappealing 'mylkshakes' and smoothies titled with horrifying affirmations including 'i am amazeballs'

"Doggo"

Yeah, it's "dogger", obv

all of that, so done with it

self-care a good one; also misused 'duty of care'

people who call the Champions League the 'Big Cup'.

nonesuch exist pf check again

I'm gonna start doing that

"the large cup"

Overheard somebody unironically suggest 'retail therapy' to a friend who was going through some kind of crisis. The friend didn't comprehend at first and the responded "Oh. Yeah. But now I don't have any money to support it."

"fur baby" instead of "pet"

Judgement call!

i have not heard "fur baby" in the wild but that is LOATHSOME

srsly vg where do you find these people

I can concur ppl say that in FL too

Equally bad is "food baby"

I'm immediately suspicious of readers and writers who bang on about liking "just a good story".

Also a lot of old comic artists saying "just tell a story" who privilege mechanical clarity over giving readers something to get excited about. You might as well be drawing instruction manuals

My dad is always like that which is why I knew taking him to Mad Max Fury Road was a mistake.

fury road tells its story with whiplash efficiency and precision!

i dunno i have a lot of patience for ppl who bang on about storytelling

apart from digital ad execs

whip smart !!

It's not just people talking in-depth about storytelling, it's people who bang on like "I just like a damn good story, just give it to me straight with some damn good characters, none of that fancy stuff mind, just a damn good story" are like the type of rockists who go "just give me a choon I can hum and dance along to". I saw some people saying Fury Road and games like Shadow Of The Colossus are pretentious because they don't have all the stuff I'd regard as extraneous bullshit.

Attention all journalists: This is really getting out of hand. Stop saying "woke." You sound fucking ridiculous.

Seriously, "awakened" only!

like lions roused from snrumber in unvanquishable number

RAG i share your pain. the price we pay for living in a world where every idiot with a camera is a film/tv/videogame critic

"This is not normal"

For when your only frame of reference for a potential descent into authoritarianism is a really shitty horror movie.

I've seen that phrase used a lot lately, describing events that are genuinely fucked up and others that are maybe disturbing but most definitely normal, but tbf never knew it was citing a horror movie? which one?

lol just one that exists in my mind

it just sounds like it'd be a catch phrase from a bad movie

I find it to be a totally impotent phrase, because it implies everything is fine and the only reason anything happens is bad is because it threatens the fineness and okayness that we'd prefer not to disturb.

Class warfare is just a huge tug of war where the rich are never going to get tired or give up.

"no-go zone"

"stand alone film"

Why's that annoying? When you're talking about certain types of films it's necessary.

ime if it's necessary to say it "stands alone" it probably does not stand alone, but in fact depends on one's fandom for a particular series, character, or leverage-ready piece of intellectual property. when i'm feeling snobby, the phrase seems to suggest people who only watch fanservice genre series movies, avoiding anything that actually stands alone but convincing themselves that this film somehow rises above, like hey you might not like star was but hold up buddy... this new one is a STAND ALONE movie, even people unfamiliar with the series will surely be won over to the rich characterization and subtle treatment of serious adult themes previously only available to initiates like myself. i realize this has more to do with my snobbishness than the phrase itself which is just marketing-speak BS being parroted uncritically.

It's useful if you're going out buying books or films that happen to be part of a series and want to know if it can work by itself. I would consider the James Bond films to be stand alone stories more or less.

i was talking about re: Star Wars, yes it bugs the hell out of me, cos nothing, not Rogue One, not the Young Han Solo and Young Obi Wan movies, stand alone, they are 100% about rehashing old material and every time i see the words "stand alone film" in connection to these new films it just seems more and more like a desperate marketing attempt to disguise that no, actually, this is the same old shit

That's kind of a different complaint.

most annoying way for ppl to say they don't like X: "X? ... not so much."