"Use other words please."

I get why it happens, and I'm sure I've done it many times myself - performing this act of reaching for an ineffable thing. It's a construction riddled with pathos - basically trying to catch something of what "bittersweet" conjures with regard to personal experience. But not actually that descriptive... should be dashed away by the same editors who should be catching strings of effusive modifiers that are all near-synonyms for each other.

yeah, I know I've done it in the past too -- I think that's why I hate it so much

confess to overusing 'at once x & y'
also to 'strings of effusive modifiers that are all near-synonyms for each other'
(bbbbut distinct shades of meaning!)
(have to) make an effort in editing to cut that stuff out

never thought it would happen but i have tired of a function word

"this"

"swear" as a noun (e.g. "he said a swear") Is THE WORST.

"mainstream" and, far worse, "underground"

"this"

― La Lechera, Thursday, September 3, 2015 4:38 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

""this""

"Disconnect".

I'm not a prescriptivist (I speak and write in non-standard English every day - heavy Glaswegian dialect). And I'm not opposed to nominalisation in principle (certainly not the word "disconnection"). But there is just something about the proliferation of that word, especially in British print journalism when it's so clearly an Americanised turn of phrase, that just makes my blood boil.

I want to call time on "did a thing" on social media, as a coy substitute for "wrote a feature" - e.g. "I did a thing for the New York Times", as if you just scribbled a few lines in your downtime.

Yep, similarly the use of 'so this happened'

don't much care for 'did a thing' but that's mainly because it sounds twee as fuck

speaking personally here, I tend to be comparably self-effacing about stuff I've written because of my gnawing sense of shame about failing to have learned any skill apart from writing about minority interest topics

'denier'

when did ppl start saying "drop dead" wrt deadlines? it drives me crazy

as in "what is the drop-dead date?"

I heard somebody use the words "moxie" in two separate sentences last week as if that's a thing that real human beings actually say.

"double-down on (something)"

"...if that makes sense."

a rare sentence-final hedge!

"incestuous" to describe a tight-knit community who prefer to work/associate with each other rather than with outsiders. Don't try to make it salacious, it's not that interesting a scenario.

sarcastic "it's almost as if"/"it's almost like" construction could do with some time on the bench

yeah i wilt at verbose sarcasm. one of the reasons i can't handle john oliver.

"it's almost as if"/"it's almost like"

yeah have consciously retired this in recent years.

"perfect pop"/"perfect pop song"

you guys would put john oliver out of business

"...if that makes sense."

i'm really good at this one

music writers saying a song is 'all x and y'

i'd like to yell everyone about this one though

Xxxpost ooh, good point! let's also add asides of the form '' --- and this is true ---''. been losing potency ever since dave barry wasn't making things up 25+ years ago.

"for white people" is gross, both in it implication about white people and non-white people

"blew us away"

"batshit insane"

had a great run, truly wonderous, but now it's time to fucking stop

"tasty," in general, but especially for describing music. just visceral skin-crawling ick

i like it for describing a situation that has just gone from bad to worse

"i wouldn't go out there, miller - it's gotten pretty tasty in the last hour"

visceral skin-crawling ick

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, February 20, 2017 4:50 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought "bonkers" is the new "batshit insane".

What if… certain journalistic clichés merely mirror the hackneyed musical material under review?

haha katherine ok

Some riffs are tasty and that's all there is to it I'm afraid.

I have to say I can kind of identify, the person i know who uses that word the most is a kind of posh dude who makes my skin crawl in a number of other ways. I think I like it because it's so exotic to my American ears..

"stripped back"

"copious amounts" - why does this phrasing shit me so much?

it's very "I just finished my sixth-grade vocabulary lesson"

everything counts, in copious amounts

buttloads is way better

It's like copious is already an amount, so it's like saying "excessive amounts amounts" maybe.

"a myriad of" when you can just say "myriad"

or drop the preciousness a bit and just say "many"

or if you want to be extra precious go with "divers and sundry"

"what's not to like"

"frothy"

had hoped one of dan savage's redeeming factors would be to remove that from the non-ironic lexicon

santorum has def ruined 'frothy' forever