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

Four Words: Use Other Words Please
"Use other words please."
Commonly used phrases that inexplicably bug you
Most irritating cliche/phrase/expression
"Taking Things to a Whole `Nother Level!"
words that annoy
Words that should earn the author a slap
PROVERBIAL and other tip offs to poor writing

-- caitlin (wpsal...) (webmail), December 23rd, 2003. (caitlin)

Oh yes, yes yes. I second that one. And the people who say it, say it over and over.

I also have a horror of people who write prolifically in all caps.

This is true.

But, this is a topic that should be dealt with routinely and harshly... the only way we can correct the language and suppress it's organic growth is by exposing and banning every new usage as it occurs... Isn't that what the French do?

Also: 'fridge,' girls who refer to each other as 'girl,' proactive...i'll be back when i think of more....

'poetic justice'. Used by the lazy to describe all 'justice' the speaker approves of, instead of a particular type. The adjective is rendered meaningless.

Agree re 'bird' for woman/girl, and lament its threatened return. Stinks of 'I'm being un-PC, where's my medal?'. Also the C-person uses it, which kinda ends the argument.

Wait, huh? Fridge is the thing you put food in, whats wrong with it?

I'm picturing him saying things such as "Would you like me to remove another beverage from the refrigerator for you, whilst we watch some association football?"

No I got you & agree I was referring to Comic Book Guys rather than all readers but was too lazy to capitalise

Like, there is a long history of ilx0rz characterizing music by its purported fanbase - fratty douches in white hats, people who work in offices, people who drive minivans, blues dentists / blues dads / blues lawyers, etc

this is a plague in music criticism in general, i like to think of it as fake sociology standing in for fake music criticism, and yeah it’s dumb

Tumblr wites

it’s least bad i suppose when there’s a real understanding of the actual fanbase but i find that it tends to be based more on lazy stereotypes and social antagonism

There is a lot going on here.

Before I found out that it was on the Index of ILX Film SnobsForbidden Words, I would have used Guilty Pleasure to mean something like “basically I like it, but I don’t feel like writing a PhD thesis defense to explain why.” But people don’t seem to want to accept this for various reasons.

One reason being that it could mean something else such as
A says: It’s a guilty pleasure of mine(translation: I like it even it is junk)
B says or thinks: I like it but I don’t think it’s junk at all, and I don’t appreciate you taste-slumming on my turf.

Or
A: It’s a guilty pleasure of mine (I like it but I am not sure if it measures up to your high standards)
B: I’m taking offense anyway because by not making a clearer assertion you have deprived me of a direct Who Is the Best Battle of the Bands discussion-style attack with which to tear you down, therefore I will attack you another way, for being weak-minded and noncommittal.

Co-worker or stranger’s tastes is yet another thing. Feel like there was once an article in the Onion about how Work Movie Friend Doesn’t Get Along With Regular Movie Friend that said a lot about this but haven’t managed to find it in recent times. See also the wonderful conversational opening gambit: “You like to read! What genre?”

Again I return to a social and circumstantial and contextual aspect of taste.

Alone in my dorm room, I didn't want to hear "No Rain" ever. Dancing goofily with no shoes on while extremely high in an Illionoisan living room with the smartest woman I have ever met, it felt like the perfect song.

If I am trying to focus on writing a book review, I would probably skip past "Life is a Highway" or "Let's Hear it for the Boy," but heading to the beach with in a borrowed convertible, a historical reenactor that I just met, those are frickin bangers.

This is more of what I mean about the social dimension: it's not "I'm embarrassed to admit that I love Phil Collins," it's more like "there's a time for the Romantics and a time for Esperanza Spalding, and I am fine with that."

* "with" is misplaced but you get the idea

"...from (x) by way of (y)" <------ I feel like this is mis-used more often than not! Like...I'm from Michigan, by way of NYC...chronologically I began in MI and progressed to NY.

People often seem to use it as "I'm from a more recent place, by way of a past place" which I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. Nothing. It's nonsensical.

Found it!
https://www.theonion.com/work-friends-not-mingling-with-other-friends-1819566324

I'm positive it has been covered here, but I've been watching more tv lately, and it seems like every third television commercial uses the word "iconic" to describe their product

iconic anthems: ibiza 2023 hot nights reloaded

I'm positive it has been covered here,

one could say that it's an iconic annoying word

Use of '101' to describe basic knowledge of a given subject - economics 101, flower arrangement 101, BDSM 101, shitposting 101, whatever. Bored of it.

“sonic canvas”

https://i.imgur.com/C6UX84P.png

which isn't some pretentious bullshit like hypnagogic or hauntological (my nominations for thread)

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Friday, January 20, 2023 7:44 AM (one week ago)

do people even use those terms though? I mean, apart from that guy who wrote the article we all complained about like 15 years ago?

really loving your most recent work, KM

lol

i should do sonic. he would not look nearly so smooth haha

In the world of soccer media, people say 'Lacksadaisical'. Possibly they mean to spell it 'Laxadaisical'.

I'm afraid I agree with the people who don't like 'guilty pleasure'.

I see that it's shorthand for saying something nuanced (as discussed above), like 'I like this though it's not usually my kind of thing', but I still think the phrase itself isn't really accurate enough.

I was thinking yesterday about how 'guesstimate' is a bad neologism, because it mainly means 'estimate', a pre-existing word, or 'guess', another.

There could still perhaps be such a thing as a guesstimate, but the word probably doesn't get used precisely enough to denote that thing, and to justify its own existence.

Worse if someone says 'a rough guesstimate'.

I now remember that a term that really does annoy me, that turns up in quite reputable places, is: "just a teeny bit".

"After an hour with him, you come to the conclusion that he might be just a teeny bit arrogant"

"The governmen't claims about Covid-19 response were just a teeny bit exaggerated"

(other variants could include tiny or even teensy)

If something were really only a teeny bit X, then that wouldn't really be worth remarking on, as it would be outweighed by other quantities. If the government's claims were just a teeny bit exaggerated, then they would be 99% accurate, which would be noteworthy and admirable. So what is meant must be "noticeably X", "considerably X".

The phrase must, then, mostly be heavily ironic in its use - it's not used to say "Y is a teeny bit X", but almost the opposite. But not all irony is helpful or makes for good communication. If people think that something is "somewhat X", "largely X", or "slightly X", then they should just say so.

"Presser."

Please no. You have enough time to say "press conference."

Do you take this line on all abbreviations?

No, just the ones I don't like for aesthetic reasons. De gustibus. It doesn't need to be a rigorous rubric.

Agree with poster Puffin - that word is idiotic.

It further occurred to me that 'guilty pleasure', in a way, could really be a misleading transfer from more bodily pleasures.

What's genuinely a guilty pleasure for me? If I go to the cinema and buy a big bag of wine gums and eat them all - I feel compelled to eat them, but by the end, or hours later, I probably think - I shouldn't really have done that. The amount of sugar and fat and so on.

The same logically applies to drink: I could stop in a pub and down 3 pints of beer on the way home, and I'd enjoy it, but I would know I shouldn't really be doing this.

I don't think that sex is a guilty pleasure (it gives another person pleasure after all, which is a good start to not being guilty), but, not to be too indelicate, for some people masturbation could be in this category.

Whereas ... Is any culture or artistic experience really like that? If I enjoy a pop record I don't then think 'Now I feel guilty / dirty / unhealthy / irresponsible'. I just enjoy it, and no harm is done to anyone. And if it's a record that I think is crass and nasty (and thus a source of 'guilt') then I won't enjoy it anyway.

I'm afraid this unpopular meditation is off the thread topic.

What's wrong with hauntological, exactly?

What's wrong with being hauntological?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W3Qn1uHlRIY/hqdefault.jpg

I
I want you
Hauntology

'Hauntological' was never meant very seriously anyway - it was a Derridean pun for one lecture series, I'm not sure that Derrida himself even reused it subsequently, and people who first encountered it took it as a joke, albeit possibly one pointing to something serious.

Partly for that reason, I don't think the term's extended life has been a very good thing.

Feel like I should buy a book with hauntology in the title just to mess with you

Fortean Times now has a monthly hauntology column.. it seems to be mostly reviews of Ghost Box records

folk payola

Listening to TalkSport soccer, which dreadfully advertises betting a lot, I realised that another genuine case of a "guilty pleasure" is gambling.

cracking up at the idea of you listening to TalkSport! Gambling is like a drug but mostly is a guilt-free one if you can just keep winning, which unfortunately is quite hard to do.

Calzino, we should get together for a Sam Matterface listening party. But turn off when it gets to Perry Groves.

i hope you'm listening to Matterface ironically

don't think there's any way to bet except guiltily

FWIW I don't like Matterface and think he's a bad development. Maybe the best to be said of him is that he produces strange phrases that are almost surreally gauche. Today he said something about Arsenal dreaming of special summer days.

OTOH, TBF, his comment 'The School of Science is capable of going nuclear' was actually fine, in the genre of absurd pre-prepared lines.

But if Calzino and I are to have a TalkSport party then it will probably have to involve him.

i didn't realise he was on TalkSport tbf, i haven't listened to it in ages because of the ads and the overwhelming self-promotion

I'm a guilt-free gambler but my betting stakes are so small these days it hardly matters, every so often I'll win a grand or two and then very slowly give it them back to them with added interest.

lol I was checking if Hawskbee & Jacobs are still on TalkSport and it seems Hawksbee has recently been in trouble with HMRC over unpaid taxes. When I got my first fancy dab radio 20 years ago I went through a TalkSport period to my shame!

I can remember one Christmas they had a recorded one-off discussion that was billed as some kind of intellectual heavyweights of TalkSport special! Who I think were James Whale, Mike Parry and someone else whom I can't remember.

they're terrible for clickbait nonsense opinions, i assume they don't still employ Jamie O'Hara but he feels like about their level

Jamie O'Hara is still there, I believe.

even better

folk payola