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?"

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.

Strunk and White have been dead for a combined 100 years or something, there’s nothing timeless about style advice.

"I can't stop thinking about blahblahblah".
I'm fairly sure you stop thinking about it all the time, now fuck off with your failed attempts at gravitas.

I used that phrase in a thread here yesterday but I don't think I was trying to evoke gravitas!

To be fair to Hemingwayesque editors, paper costs money

yeah like anyone actually uses paper and ink anymore

some people eat them

“it’s an art not a science”

& variations thereof

I am a working scientist. Every month or so I get the urge to stand on a roof and scream "JUST BECAUSE YOU MEASURED SOMETHING DOESN'T MAKE IT SCIENCE" at Heston Blumenthal and every marketing consultant who uses a "fact about the brain" to shore up their buzzword bullshit, and every fucker who looks up something on the internet to support their argument and GIFs it with "SCIENCE". Fuck this bullshit. If you feel the need to announce it as SCIENCE it reliably shows you don't know what science is. Same goes for the chumps who think "scientifically proven" is a thing, it's not, it's the exact opposite of what science is. FUCK.

miss rona

our govt's speeches and press releases have the phrase "scientific advice" packed in wherever possible, and then some. I've started to hear it in the "SCIENCE!" way Matthew describes.

pair it with the visuals and faux equations they do produce and it's like an Armando Iannucci pisstake

Quite plainly a ploy to ensure scientists get stuck with the blame when investigations into the mishandling of this shitshow begin.

Science and magic are not interchangeable, not that you can tell people that

The other abuse of “science” is imagining that a scientist’s opinion is “science” and then acting as if it’s some kind of guarantee. Even if you’ve asked other scientists whose opinions are not the one you wanted.

ooh and medical doctors imagining that their knowledge and training makes their opinion scientific, or that they are scientists. Some doctors are of course, but not because of their medical degree.

"Nasally" instead of "nasal". I started hearing this around 10 years ago or so and I have even seen it in a textbook at this point.

xps I really need to get over myself

no you're right, they're wrong

The Grapes of Wrathfulness

"inflection point" instead of "turning point"

just encountered 'evolvement'

Like that pokemon had max evolvement?

disenvolvument

swedish cars: what's inside

the new normal

A newer normal

Bill de Blasio’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

"mercury set to soar"

"too good not to share", accompanying a supposedly hilarious/incisive meme

extra hate if it's followed by a crying with laughter emoji.

"Karen"

rest assured, "Karen" will soon pass away to the land of forgotten memes.

Shovel-ready

haven't heard that one since ARRA

"The 27 Club"

"Whack a mole". Not entirely because of Boris Johnson, only 99% because of Boris Johnson.

'straight-sized' people/bodies/clothing