"Use other words please."

"putting out fires"

alt.shenanigans was a quality usenet newsgroup

exclusive

any ___splaining construction other than mansplaining (straightsplaining, whitesplaining, etc.). None of them work.

splainsplaining

ok, which one of you did it

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wrg/5176556495.html

Hard to believe there's a lack of decent copyeditors at the Time's

seeing various folks using "lane" a lot

Caramanica re Drake: And that’s true — by creating his own sound, and lane, he ensured no one could best him

agitprop
"agit-pop"

I have to let it out: stop the "at once _____ and _____", where the blanks are essentially opposites.

Everything can be summed up in terms of opposites, which is a neat notion about existence in general, but in most cases I've read this, the terms used are either too vague, or one seems obviously more apt for the music than the other, and comes off as hedged (and lazy). If you're describing music that can be at once "this" and "that", then why not also describe "the other", or each of the millions of alternatives? Or, you could just do the much harder thing, and attempt to describe what the music actually sounds like, or makes you feel, without setting these weird limits that traverse almost infinite detail.

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"