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

we could refer to firefighters, police, and emts collectively as firpolemts.

'in anger' to mean 'in earnest'

these x times, where x is extraordinary, unprecedented, difficult etc

"Amidst this clusterfuck" covers it better.

'in anger' to mean 'in earnest'

"I feel seen / feeling seen / I see you" must stop

xp I haven't encountered it too often but in tech "when x is used in anger" typically means used by real life customers not just devs and testers.

Don't look back in anger.

yes i've usually heard it in a UK tech context i.e. "in june we'll be in a position to start phase 2 in anger" or "once we start really coding in anger"

it would be funny as a throwaway, but it's become A Thing

I notice there's also a military expression 'fire in anger,' meaning to fire for real, not in practice. I wonder if that's where it originated.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fire_in_anger

I don't know who needs to hear this but

don't look back in earnest

jmm thats where ive always seen it used

the move from practice/training to competition or whatever, sports context or etc

"in anger" is an accurate and descriptive term for using modern computer hardware and software

Directed by Kenneth Anger.

https://i.imgur.com/lgMMdlS.jpg

"ecofascism"

coming on 2 months since a half dozen likely 22 year olds made a half dozen dumbass tweets and the nation's smug are still in a frenzy about it

until donald trump and mitch mcconnell start advocating genocide for sake of dear mother gaia i think i'm going to keep the threat level at green

the front lines, the frontline workers

not everything is a (great) war

If I could sum up everything that grinds my gears about blitz spirit, real england, nostalgia for imperialism, colonialism, dying in the thousands in war and endless unquestioning love for the royal family in one word it would be

BUNTING

http://dearsportsfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Bunt-2-1.jpg

Also hate bunting in baseball and I know next to nothing about baseball. Feels like a heel play.

Walking as well. Fuck that coward move.

heel plays are the best plays :D

my dad's always held that home runs should be considered foul balls as the ball has been put outside the bounds of play

Calling a thing a "so-called" thing when it's just the name of the thing, just like all the other things.

Been hearing a lot of "the so-called R number" this week.

Spelling "never mind" as a single word when it is not a proper noun referring to the title of a Nirvana album. I don't actually think anyone did this pre-1991. I also always assumed that the title meant more than just "never mind".

I guess that means it offends me as both an English speaker and a Nirvana fan.

ugh wrote out a response to this but...... nv m

this [album / movie / book] "slaps"

"iconic"

I am annoyed every time I see the phrase "Nobel Prize-winning economist", that's a fake Nobel Prize and it's aggravating

The prize consists of money and the money isn't fake.

it's legal tender!

"I'M SCREAMING"

"real ones"

"only the real ones wore Silly Bandz"
"real ones know it was Yanny and Laurel"
"real ones can quote the entire fire drill scene from The Office"
"real ones remember this lil guy: https://i.imgur.com/Kq8Eq3T.gif"

"Every death is a tragedy". Given that it's only politicians who ever say it and they only say it when someone has died and it's directly or indirectly their fault.

always followed by "but,"

Preceded by "Of course..."

ugh, "depthful"

depthful is great, it has a classic Old English flavor and that fearsome consonant sequence in the middle!

Hmm, good point. I probably would like it more as literal usage, e.g. "The abyss is most depthful."

in what sense have you heard it used?

As synonymous with 'profound' or 'meaningful' to describe a work of art. In that context, it always just sounded like a contorted way of saying 'deep'.

I'm happy to learn that 'lengthful' was once in common use.

I was once in a conversation about a wine (iirc it was a Chateauneuf-du-Pape) where someone said it had a lot of "flavorfulness." Someone else said "yeah, some of us just call that 'flavor.'"

Personally I have no problem with elevated diction, elaborately florid language, and with sesquipedalian circumlocutions. So in theory I am okay with "depthful" and "lengthful," but I know there will always be some sneering simplifier asking why you don't just say "deep" or "long."

the idea that simplicity or directness is anywhere near the top of the list of motivations for word choice is insane if you're a linguist. that's not how any of this works! caprice is so undervalued as a foundational aspect of language

sorry i think you mean capriciousness

lol

totally agree, f. hazel.

Just sayin, if you go out into the world of professional writers and editors, be prepared to have to fight any time you want to use a three-syllable word when there's an allegedly synonymous one-syllable word available. There's someone in every office who's read a little too much Hemingway.*

Though I have a tough time defending "compliancy" when the prettier word "compliance" exists.

* = Or, rather, thinks they have. People using "Hemingway" as a stand-in for short/punchy/raw sentences are being both simplistic and wrong. Hemingway wrote a whole bunch of frilly filler as well as cartoonishly muscular, manly, "simple" prose. But that's a different topic.

Following Strunk & White is a great guide for 98% of people who must write something in order to communicate to others, because most people have little stomach for writing. They approach it as a tedious chore, a frightening opportunity to fail in public, or an elaborate way to bury their thoughts in impenetrable prose and thereby deflect criticism.

But Strunk & White is not a master class. Every masterly writer moves past that level and learns to write in a flexible prose that personally suits them.

sorry i think you mean capriciousness

xpost lol!

re Strunk & White - hell to the yeah. "Omit needless words" is decent advice for some people. But in the wrong hands, it can be turned into a really stifling atmosphere, where joy and fun and play are outlawed.