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

i think it does

but full disclosure i just typed "low key stressing" on social media so i have kind of a rooting interest in it for the moment

but maybe the difference is, i really *am* low key stressing that the frozen cheese pizza is upside down

Have we discussed the back-formation of "high-key" from "low-key"?

I live with a teenager who uses "high-key" as the opposite of "low-key." They will say, "I'm low-key into Genshin Impact," then say, "I'm high-key into Ensemble Stars."

It's comprehensible and arose naturally (as many such locutions do) but it rubs my ears the wrong way.

I don't mind "obsessed with" too much because in the 90s everyone on youth TV said "obsessed by" which irritated me no end. I don't even know if it's grammatically incorrect; I just don't like it.

Low- and high-key were terms used in photography decades ago to describe predominantly under- or over-exposed printing as aesthetic choices.

We talked about high-key on the "misusing words" thread. Though I also ilx searched it and it's been used on this borad going back a ways

From dictionary.com: Low-key would appear to have musical origins, characterizing something has having a deeper, more muted, or darker tonal register. We can find low-key for “of a low pitch” in the early 19th century. Charles Dickens, for instance, wrote of it that way in his 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit:

"She continued to sidle at Mr. Chuffey with looks of sharp hostility, and to defy him with many other ironical remarks, uttered in that low key which commonly denotes suppressed indignation."

I always assumed low-key was a musical thing first, but I don't know that I've ever heard high-key in common usage, or ever actually

The examples I found are p interesting. It tends to get used deliberately as a playful contrast to low-key, but not always. I also think it sounds less weird when it's not being attached to "into" or "obsessed":

What were the low and high points of your day?
Lorde - Melodrama (2017)
It is the 2018-19 NBA Playoffs discussion thread for hoops friends ONLY
US Politics: July 2020 - "Denigrating this Luxury Avenue"
Is SPIN really circling the drain?
Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

the "right" thing is a scourge and anyone who does this needs to take a good look in the mirror

"[celebrity did a thing] and we have questions" as a headline needs to die in a fire

This is the way the world ends, not with a "like," but a "right?”

When I was a kid I remember seeing something in an old joke book where a father says to his son "I've got two words I want you to stop using, one is 'swell' and the other is 'lousy'" and the kid says "sure dad, what are the words?".

Now I am the dad and the words are "OP" and "sus"

THANK YOU

my 13yo cycles through new superwords for “great” every month or so.

OP
brazy
dubs

does OP stand for something?

overpowered, like a weapon in a game

I kinda love Twitch lingo and emotes but I'm too old to say them out loud

I don't really mind sus, which I hear constantly from my 9-year-old. And it played a vital part in this exchange which I will probably remember forever:

-Look at that bus. It's sus. The sus bus.
-What's sus about it?
-...It doesn't look like a regular bus.

https://fachordscdn-16d90.kxcdn.com/static/chords/images/a/sus2/a-sus2-pos-1.png

Just about every time I've posted here, it's been some phrase that is either meaningless or where there was already some perfectly acceptable way of expressing the same thing. Here's an annoying phrase that actually documents a useful idea that nobody thought to keep track of until the last decade: swing-and-miss (not as a verb, but as a counting stat). I think tonight's WS broadcasters have said it 10 times already.

"Swing and a Miss" would be a good title for a big-band-plus-girl-singer album.

“whiff” gets the job done better imo

^ otm and also deeply versed in the lingo

i think a lot of podcasters say "right"

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, October 25, 2022 1:51 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

ime the worst offender of this is Nate Silver

Re "high-key," the slang usage is pretty recent but it has apparently used in lighting/photography contexts for a while.

https://books.google.com/books/content?id=aGDiSYdDmJYC&pg=PA49&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3sIOdpgjQZpiOjDXqYwbo1cTZX6A&w=1280

"Sunsetting".

haha -- did you also get the email from google analytics today?

I most certainly did.

"deep dive"

otm

deep deep dive
So-socialize

people who misuse "longue durée" as a fancy way of saying "long term" can gtfo

"deep dive"

what term would you use instead?

thought experiment
evidence-based investigation
snorkeling without a snorkel
(that it could mean any one is problematic?)

"something more than the superficial lip service i usually engage in"

snappy AND inviting

Deep-throat service.

In-depth exploration?

personally i've got no issue with deep dive? what's the problem?
sure you can say "in-depth exploration" but why bother when you can say "deep dive"?!

adults that refer to a group of peers as "kids" as a form of infantilizing comradery

I think these phrases are mostly scapegoats for do-nothing co-workers and managers who say things instead of do them, like phatic shirking

lol i read that as phatic shrieking, which also seems accurate. i love the verb shriek.

i have a coworker who says students need to learn to "task initiate". in meetings he talks about how we can help them "task initiate". he uses it out loud with students. "ok guys, you need to start thinking about how to task initiate today". these are seventh graders, so thinking about how to get started when a teacher gives you a task is a good skill, but the way he says "task initiate" drives me nuts. i think maybe it's the combination of new-fangled jargon for old concept (in my day we called it "getting started", and we walked uphill in the snow both on the way to school and the way back) combined with total disregard for english grammar

sure you can say "in-depth exploration" but why bother when you can say "deep dive"?!

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, November 28, 2022 7:44 AM (six days ago)

thank you for making me think about why this phrase annoys me ... because it does ... and I think these are the reasons why:
1. its trendiness / use by people/writers who are annoying in other ways as well
2. what follows is often not very deep tbh ... they might discuss something for a longer duration (e.g. more time, more words) than a summary, but it doesn't really go very deep. Like duration does not equal depth

the "conversation" "around" pretty much anything

join it!

brb just going to break down a silo or two

https://myfox8.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2018/04/silo.jpg?w=1280

you clearly know how to task initiate, Tracer!

the "conversation" "around" pretty much anything

I think this "speaks" "to" the wider cultural conversation around pretty much anything.