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

Just saw a CNN headline that used the word "lit"

Oh here it is:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics/melania-trump-rudy-giuliani/index.html

I guess the response is "sharp" or something along those lines, but if it's the headline writer's idea of "lit" then the headline writer needs to get out more.

People who say or write 'cliche' when they mean 'cliched'–it's becoming very common and it really annoys me.

― estela (estela), Thursday, August 18, 2005 12:52 PM (twelve years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In theory I am completely down with changes in usage, but this one still makes me grit my teeth every time I read it for some reason.

That's similar to how I feel about the use of "genius" to mean "ingenious" or as an adjective in any way. Generally I lean toward descriptivism, but not when it makes language uglier and more grating.

xp I'm not even sure I knew that this was a thing. I think the é kinda made me believe it was as good as an -ed? Like how you put that on when constructing many verbs in passé composé.

Adults using words like “tummy” make me want to revoke their larynx privileges

Will, I am with you. Cliché is already an adjective; the noun is the later form

I mean förm

I wrote about something related that's gotten tiresome.

https://www.splicetoday.com/pop-culture/say-what-you-re-saying

?

jk; otm

lol

One nice fact about "cliché" is that it refers to common usages which manual typesetters used to leave assembled, to speed the task of typesetting. So if a phrase was commonly used it was left set up as a cliché.

"Have a good one" = I do not care enough about you to actively recollect what time of day it is, bye

i've been saying that recently and i don't know why. it's usually in the context of temporary interactions with other dog owners on the sidewalk. she's friendly, what's your dog's name, oh that's a lovely name, how old is she, ok now have a good one

lol same ^^ i never remember the names of the dogs either. when i see them again it's like the first time all over again. over and over.

“We’ll be in touch” - when spoken by one person to another about themselves. It just sounds so committee like

Why are LCD/LED TVs called "flat-screens" still? Remember when tube tv's with flat screens came out? Those are "flat-screens". New TVs should be called LED or panel TVs or something. I'm not highly invested in this tbr but it kinda bugs.

In the field of journalism, 'flat-screen TV' is still often used, nonsensically, as a signifier of luxury or extravagance, and features in Robert Hutton's glossary of journalese, Romps, Tots and Boffins.

I got it whipped out of some copy earlier last month.

here too, and it’s phenomenally stupid because the only way to get a bulge-screen tv is by rummaging through landfill

Whoo boy this one's been simmering under the surface for years, and it feels good to get it out -- I cannot stand the phrase "fuck cancer" or any other instance where people anthropomorphize natural processes or inanimate objects to hurl invective or hear praise as if the object had free will, it just seems woefully immature and... lame. I know in the case of cancer, it's a dreadful thing (killed my dad fwiw) so what's the harm in telling cancer to fuck itself, and yet the phrase and the impulse behind it had always repulsed me

hear=heap

I hear you.

it just sounds glib I guess

I don’t think “fuck cancer” is anthropomorphic any more than “fuck this weather”, it’s expressing simple disgust with the whole notion. “Fuck you, cancer, you took X from me,” is personification. Also, fuck cancer.

fuck tsunamis

fuck mortality tbh

Stuff like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWJEmMDQXoA

jesus wept

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl6i5qgdr9A

had this one in Ireland recently. Didn't go down well

yeah that was a fuckin shocker

Guys I think we got cancer, from having to watch that

"It is what it is."

I find this is used as a "Get out of jail free" type term for people who are assholes and whose assholery has created a sour situation and that's their way of saying, "You get to deal with my bad disposition."

I've thought a lot about "it is what it is." I agree that it is often used in the context described above, and that it is overused in general, but I do think the phrase has value and use and is certainly better than "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Do what serves you

^ that one makes me want to scorpion bile all over people

Ime it’s used by selfish assholes

My ex-wife would get sloshy, rip-roaring drunk and then create a conflict; which almost always involved baseless, indisputably false accusations of me fancying another woman. She would garble through her "evidence" with increasing volume and belligerence, only to declare, "IT IS WHAT IT IS!" at the end of her ridiculous tirade, as if to really clobber me with her perceived revelation.

Both Kane and manager Gareth Southgate were asked by an overseas reporter about the significance of playing England’s first World Cup game at such an important historical site as Volgograd, where the battle of Stalingrad was fought.

Kane said: “It’s great to play football in such a place. We travel the world a lot as footballers. You obviously want to go and see the history, the things we don’t always get to do. But we have to play football. History is what it is."

“Friendly reminder”

using "pissed" to mean angry, instead of "pissed off"! pissed, used as an adjective unaccompanied by a preposition, means drunk. this is non-negotiable.

i like the use of "it is what it is" in the kacey musgraves song "it is what it is"

“offering up” instead of “offering”

adding "up" to most verbs tbh ("I need to change up my car").

Was thinking about the 'up' as an Americanism - as in 'slow up'. But the 'down' in 'slow down' is superfluous too!

"slow up"? is that regional?

"slow up" is pretty rare ime, but not unheard of. as a kid, the accepted way to ask some other kids to let you catch up who were outdistancing you was to yell "HEY! WAIT UP!"

oh yea wait up for sure

brad otm

I think 'slow up' is an occasional southern US thing? I don't know - I've heard it a few times. https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/slow-down-v-slow-up.940985/

offering up has a specific connotation ime