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

“pivot”

I keep saying this, should I cut my tongue out

"too funny"

Particularly people that overuse the phrase and almost exclusively use it in response to something that isn't humorous in least, e.g. "Oh Mary brought in cupcakes today? Too funny!"

Not necessarily annoyed but definitely fascinated by people (mid 30s and younger) writing 'loveeeee', 'vibeeeee' and similar as opposed to repeating the first vowel for prolonged emphasis

"We Have Met the Enemy and He is Sus: How the internet turned us all into impostors," sort of thing.

― Lily Dale, Thursday, April 7, 2022 4:10 PM (two days ago)

you win today's made-up clickbait title that will eventually become a clickbait title award

I feel like "creatives" is seen as less icky by younger people, whereas for me it feels corporate and like a gross capitalistic appropriation of artists. I think there are some younger people that say creatives as shorthand for "people who do creative work in or around the arts" ... but from a more populistic attitude where art is more rarefied and potentially capitalistic? idk ... i heard this younger activist say it unironically in a positive way, and I was ... very confused ...

my current actually annoyance is with "babies" ... like not referring to infants of any species ... like some variant of "babes" as in "attractive people" ? i honestly am curious where this came from. And another annoying use of "babies" is when it used to refer to children that are past puberty and well into their teens, most recently I saw it as part of a grassroots social media campaign to prevent the local school district from closing a handful of schools that had too few students enrolled to merit retaining the building. And the protesters were arguing "how dare they do this to our babies?" ... and I felt like, do you have to infantilize teenage kids in order to assert their value and how the closures disadvantage them? They are not babies AND they would probably benefit more from still being able to attend a school in their neighborhood than having to arrange for transportation to go across town.

also babies don’t go to school

re: 'creatives', this one is super common in my industry among people of all ages across the board it seems: actual people working in creative areas, people managing specialist workspaces for 'creatives', developers, local govt...

At my late 90s dot com job we had the “suit room”, the “geek room”, and the other room, with the designers and illustrator and writer that didn’t have a succinct name and were much more alike than different. We ended up calling it the “zoo room” for whatever reason.

It makes me cringe and I hope I never have to speak it out loud but “creatives” really does fit a niche and I can’t think of a better alternative for my list of job description shorthand terms.

i honestly am curious where this came from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWSVtnG2LEU

I find the rebranding of HR, Recruitment etc as the ‘People People’ much more irritating…but that’s how I roll.

Wow, I haven't come across the People People people yet – People Services is as close as I've seen.

speaking of which, I keep getting ads for some new company called "Workhuman"

Workhuman®. Without the Human, - it’s just Work.

Creating a More Human Workplace | Workhuman

So it's an alien temp firm for hiring humans, right?

yes, jmm, it is actually a sophisticated marketing campaign for the reboot of V: The Final Battle

how to work forty humans

i would love to see a parody of this ad involving cats tbh

WorkCat

knowing how humans work is not knowing how to workhuman

encountered the spousal term of endearment "husbeast" today

"hold space" ... the worst

"forever home" makes me puke

I had a contractor once refer to my house as a "pine box home" and I thought that was appropriate

"the home you will eventually die in, and probably not of natural causes"

i'm sure "adulting" is hiding under the cut but somebody used it twice in two tinder messages with me and i felt my interest in meeting evaporate

I *hate* 'adulting'.

This was probably covered somewhere upthread, but the misuse of the subjective "I" for the objective "me" has spread through the English language like a plague.

E.g., "Please let Melanie and I know what time you will be here."

That's just poor grammar

Worse: "myself."

xp Yes, but so widespread as to be in danger of becoming accepted usage.

Forever home in its original context of kids who have been bouncing around foster homes getting adopted...can't hate on that.

Agreed. I think it is a trifle cutesy when applied to shelter animals, but people who are really into pets being cutesy about them is hardly surprising.

But if someone uses it about their job or a piece of real estate? That is a nope.

"table stakes"

have heard this from two american tech dudes over the last month to describe aspects of their product, the stuff of skin-crawling douchebag bro-down nightmares imo

the british version - "hygiene factor" - not a lot better

This was probably covered somewhere upthread, but the misuse of the subjective "I" for the objective "me" has spread through the English language like a plague.

Meh, morphological case has been disappearing from English for about a thousand years now. Anyone with even minimal knowledge of the history of the English language knows this. Nouns in English lack distinct nominative vs oblique forms and surprise! It confuses nobody because we have an extremely complex and completely intuitive way of marking case in English: word order. Which is elegant, beautiful, and totally unappreciated. Frankly, using "I" and "me" interchangeably in conjunctive noun phrases just doesn't fucking matter, and to me falls squarely into the category of reactionary bullshit. Here's an idea: instead of wasting all that time and energy adhering to made-up shibboleths about a language you already speak perfectly well (or even worse, policing other people's usage), try learning another language! A far better use of your limited time on Earth.

"and to me worrying about it falls squarely into"

itt: f.hazel being correct

this has been my quarterly linguist rant, thank you for listening

Don't know if I told you guys my teacher's joke about the pair of English teachers at the airport who, upon hearing their flight announced, turn to each other and exclaim "Darling, that's we!"

Love when f hazel shows up to linguist-rant
10/10!! I agree too.

I think "reactionary bullshit" is a little strong. That's just I, though.

"Give the book to I" will never be right.

That's just I, though.

So...the Rastas had it right all along?

If you are the big parse tree...

F. Hazel speaks truth, says me

And yet, annoyance in itself is a valid grounds for posting itt.

Love when f hazel shows up to linguist-rant
10/10!! I agree too.

(or even worse, policing other people's usage)

Yeah but that's this thread's very reason for existence

Grammar police, arrest this man

Two borads separated by a common gramsplaining.

"Give the book to I" will never be right.

Also not something any native speaker of English ever really says so pretty irrelevant? Generally speaking, the I/me uncertainty arises in conjunctive noun phrases (the ones with and in them) or with pronouns appearing directly after a copula ("It is I"). As a linguist, this is pretty representative of why this grammar maven bullshit is irritating... not only does it not matter, you don't even seem to understand the distribution of the usage you're criticizing!

Yeah but that's this thread's very reason for existence

I'm on board with good-natured grousing about corporate-speak and overripe zeitgeisty terms, but if you decide you're going to rant about nonstandard dialectal usage or grammar maven BS, I'm gonna show up because that shit is bigoted and hateful whether you realize it or not. Like, do you know that it's a feature of Black English dialects to have invariant pronoun forms? Do you fully understand the forces you are teaming up with when you say such-and-such nonstandard pronoun usage is "a plague"?