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

take after food

It would be fascinating to somehow measure how much of one's speech a group of people/a class etc understand and how much is lost - through garbled syntax, use of inappropriate language (at both vocabulary and semantic level), simple zoning out. It'd have to be pretty high, right?

Most people, most of the time, are depending on context to interact with others... if you've ever spent time doing transcription, you know that after the fact a conversation between 3-4 people is extremely difficult to parse.

It's a wonder we ever manage to impart any useful information at all. My classroom is generally a bedlam of noise and miscommunication but the results are decent, so...

I go with neckbeard maestro William Empson: the language problem but we have to try.

Language is the source of misunderstandings

Interpretation is the source of misunderstandings

And everything we perceive is an interpretation.

the amount of info we can convey with language across even the noisiest channels should make you weep with joy each morning upon waking, it's probably one of the most amazing things in the entire universe. and all the various things people complain about are, for the most part, manifestations of an underlying playfulness that is essential to making language work as well as it does.

otm

Unnecessary stains upon silence and nothingness iirc.

if humans didn't have language, and therefore expressive silence, then the universe could not ignore itself

It would ignore itself passively rather than actively. A more consummate ignorance.

dude

Cats have expressive silence, imo

booming post f hazel

is not the dance of the celestial bodies itself a form of

to gainsay Beckett is to agree with him, to do it out loud is a point for language. whatever else, he did give Andre the Giant rides to school from time to time.

'I love the word, words have been my only loves, not many.'

xp In his little pick-up truck, no less. One of the defining images of the last century, surely?

Anyhow, to ground one's apologia in dialectics is to err on the side of language by default, for better or for worse (usually both).

adulting

fuck right off.

yeah I hate that one

Heyday of “adulting” is a couple years in the past lucky for you

where, it's still said all the time. my most recent ex used to say "adulting" and "sportsball" all the time, which drove me insane.

(not why I broke up with her tho)

'Adulting' is a bona fide abomination. Nor has it vanished completely, alas.

"aspirational"

I like how it could also mean "makes you feel like vomiting"

Not quite - aspiration of vomit is when you inadvertently breathe it in (sorry for the tmi)

i aspire to vomit

better things aren't possible

We are saddened to learn that Legendary Wrestling Ring Announcer, Howard Finkel has passed away at the age of 69.

^^^this comma

that is not a good usage of commas
when in doubt, leave it out!

As someone who has never really been taught the fundamentals of grammar (it seemed less than an afterthought in 80s Britain) commas make me want to cry - I simultaneously over and underuse them. When students ask me, I manufacture an excuse and look the other way.

Originally a comma was merely a clue to one who was reading aloud that the author recommended a pause to be inserted at that point. More rigorous 'rules' for their use are not rules of grammar per se, but only strictures placed on upon usage, which may be safely ignored in any writing not governed by a manual of style, as imposed by an editor.

yeah if you read any 18th/19th century lit, it's commas all over the damn place... we live in an age of comma minimalism

Sometimes commas call attention to themselves; sometimes they fade into the background and you hardly notice them.

They have come and gone in English usage. They're kinda like... a comma chameleon.

why do people adopt awful new slang so eagerly?

CRINGE
SHOWING THEIR WHOLE ASS
SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD

Why are you saying these things in these ways? No one did a few months ago. Why are you now?

"Social distancing" would absolutely apply if it weren't incredibly important at the moment

remember what Laurie Anderson said: LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS!

fwiw people have said those things for years now

also they're all good

"showing their ass" appears in fuckin Reservoir Dogs

"Cringe" is slang? I've using that for decades (I cringe a lot). But your basic point is the fundamental question of this thread: what motivates people to start using some dumb phrase everybody else is suddenly using? It should work in exactly the opposite way.

"been using"

they mean cringe in this formulation: "this entire thread is cringe"

If it's being used as a noun now, then yes, that is annoying.

this thread is now basically "new school slang u don't like"

i hate it, i've said this many times in this thread

it's meant to be annoying, it's a mocking criticism

saying the quiet part loud is over two decades old

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMHt481HsFU

If it's being used as a noun now, then yes, that is annoying.

This has been around since 1950:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cringe