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

thank you yes, you'd have to be a very special kind of bellend to worry about not being cliched ooh la la when faced with consoling somebody's loss

― GK Chessington's World of Adventure (Noodle Vague), Thursday, January 30, 2020 12:22 PM bookmarkflaglink

Otm

"Just leave me alone, your words of support are hackneyed and stilted"

Using "that sucks" for major tragedies, on the other hand...

Yes it's really tough finding the right words to console someone you've never met over the death of someone you've never heard of on Facebook. Context, dear boy.

― (includes digression on farting) (Tom D.), Thursday, January 30, 2020 1:26 PM bookmarkflaglink

Context missing from the original post, but how many strangers do people console on a regular basis.

I can't remember a time where I was on FB and said "oh hey, the guy I met at a Grim Reaper concert once just lost his grandpa, think I'll offer my words of support."

You can't be on FB very much, people are forever announcing deaths on there.

That's one thing Twitter has over FB... or does it?

People dying all the time, what a tired old trope

to the tune of 'love and marriage':

thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers
i suspect that really no one cares

Xxpost yea but i have a FB friend that is some rando I barely know, even if they somehow show up in my feed, I don't offer condolences if I barely know them. That's just weird.

I won't even say happy birthday on FB to someone who hasn't called me an asshole at least once

Well, what can I say, there's a lot of weird people out there!

Evidently.

"Moral bankruptcy".

Cursed, now.

ok, kind of specific, but when someone guesses the countdown conundrum and the presenter says "let's see if that's right". if it wasn't correct he wouldn't be revealing it, the other person / side would get the rest of the time to work it out.

If there’s one perfectly normal word that I can say truly makes me mad to hear it’s “boring”, I’d like everyone to stop calling things boring. Please. Come up with something else to say.

Interest deficient

"let's see if that's right"

haha you are not alone on this!

"I hope he gets the help he needs"

"A major terrorist incident". I never hear about any minor ones tbh.

Various UK railway station/train announcements:

"The next station stop will be..."
"This train will be non-stopping at the next station"
"This train is formed of eight carriages" - I'm not sure if this grammatically correct or not, or what would be better; it just sounds wrong.

i very much hate the the construction "not that good (or other adjective) of a (thing)", is that considered grammatically ok in america or something?

it's not that elegant of a construction

its not that big of a deal

Gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal

"young people"

Various UK railway station/train announcements:

"The next station stop will be..."
"This train will be non-stopping at the next station"
"This train is formed of eight carriages" - I'm not sure if this grammatically correct or not, or what would be better; it just sounds wrong.

seeing "simp" used a lot as basically synonym for beta, cuck, thirsty. which is particularly boring because it's being treated as if it were a "new" word or new usage

When it calls me a customer rather than a passenger.

while in line at a pharmacy i was recently summoned with 'next guest, please'

foh

I've also heard, "Following guest!" at a store, can't remember where or when.

I used to work retail with a woman who would say, "I can help whomever's next!" and I had to put in a lot of time and research convincing her it was "whoever." It ended up being a whole store-wide argument w/ customers weighing in.

"it's a bop"

Wait, strictly speaking isn't "whomever" right in this context?

I don't get the "following customer, please" thing in the States. What's wrong with "next customer, please"? Do they think next is too abrupt a word or something?

service culture in the states is cringe

gimme a sulky teen barely bothering to avoid you with the splash any day

uh in a catering context youse guttersnipes

I'm terrible at explaining grammar because I never learned all the proper terms, but here goes: "Whoever" is correct because while "I" is the subject of the sentence (I can help), "Whoever" is the subject of the clause "whoever is next" and the clause doesn't change. (It's possible I've used the word "clause" wrong here, but you get the idea.)

Ah, that makes sense - thanks.

Linguist answer: just use "who" all the time, for many people "whom" is now analyzed as simply the formal/marked archaic version of "who" and the case distinction it used to mark (nominative vs objective) is handled unambiguously with word order. Which is probably why you're still hearing customer service people use it, since formal = polite.

That said, credit to the who-words for hanging on to the most distinctive forms of any pronoun for the longest time (pour one out for "whosever")

I think I am as at least as likely to say whomsoever as whomever!

I'm a populist, I say "who-all's"

'm terrible at explaining grammar because I never learned all the proper terms, but here goes: "Whoever" is correct because while "I" is the subject of the sentence (I can help), "Whoever" is the subject of the clause "whoever is next" and the clause doesn't change. (It's possible I've used the word "clause" wrong here, but you get the idea.)

― Lily Dale, Thursday, February 6, 2020 4:15 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think that's correct. 'Whoever' is the object that the subject is helping, regardless of the clause. We say 'I can help her/him' not she/he. Technically whomever is correct, but no one says it because it sounds stupidly pedantic, like this post.

Another example is "there's loads of ..."

I use a website for work which allows one to select 'more search options' or 'less search options' and the latter drives me fuuuuuuuucken crazy.</pedant>

we could've cured cancer by now if we didn't get distracted by pointless grammar issues

or should that be "hadn't"??

Correcting grammar is just another of the million ways we pretend that patting sand onto our orderly castle is going to keep the tides of chaos from wiping that fucker out.

I don't think that's correct. 'Whoever' is the object that the subject is helping, regardless of the clause. We say 'I can help her/him' not she/he.

Not quite. The entire clause is the object. "I can help whomever" is fine, I think, though you probably still shouldn't say it because it sounds weird. But once you make it "Whoever is next," it has to stay that way.

Think about another example: "I am going to punch whomever ate my sandwich." "Whomever ate my sandwich" is clearly wrong, and any sentence that requires you to say it is wrong.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to get this thread embroiled in a long grammar discussion, just pointing out that how frustrating it can be when retail-speak combines with hypercorrection.

"pointing out how frustrating it can be" is of course what I meant to type.

had to create 'work goals' for myself

decided fuck it and used the word 'onboarding'

i got sighted on that onboarding, mookieproof, and decided to give it a deep dive

Let me know once you’ve bottomed that out

is it me or our nine out of people pronouncing the word pundits "pundiNts"?

haven't noticed that yet, but have noticed people pronouncing tenets "tenants."