"Use other words please."

it makes me so mad!!

i mean basically they shouldn't say it at all: if anything using it wrongly is breaking out of the prisonhouse of cliché

(albeit into another prisonhouse, also ultimately of cliché)

to coin the proverbial phrase

and take it to the bank

I'm of the opinion that people in the main are much less interested in coining new and fresh phrases now than they were when "to coin a phrase" was a popular phrase in its non-ironic sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No82kn1EfPk

Love is so simple, to quote a phrase
You've known it all the time, I'm learnin' it these days

I remember that The NME in the 1990s used the word "angular" a lot. A bit of googling throws up this feature in the NME from May 1995 in which they describe Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood as angular. On the cover: Dodgy. They must have described Menswear as angular at some point but I'm not googling that. To be fair Jonny Greenwood does have thin arms.

"To be fair", or TBF, that's another one. I write "in their defence" instead. Amirite?

How about “angular” to describe music — “Wire’s taut, angular post-punk,” etc.

Reminds me of the days when “muscular” drumming seemed to be everywhere.

I mean, describing Greenwood as angular is a lot more tolerable than describing music that way!

Physically and musically angular: Jonny Greenwood, Tom Verlaine...

When the word "Because" is used as both a subordinating conjunction and a preposition. ("Sentences" that solely consist of "Because ____, I guess.", or a similar linguistic silliness.)

____ is usually 'reasons'

or 'communism'

I feel like that was a cutesy Internet trend that has largely run its course?

The use of it as a clever and unexpected sentence structure has largely run its course.
The use of it as a lazy joke is probably years from petering out.

Language is bad.

howard cosell used to call philadelphia eagles wide receiver harold carmichael (who at 6'8" was the tallest WR in NFL history) 'the angular one'

probably a topic for another less lawn-defensive thread but i'm intrigued how and why some usages pall and others just bed in for eternity w/o anyone minding

"most ambitious work to date"

For some reason "angular" to describe vaguely post-punk guitar riffs has never really bothered me. Yeah, it's a cliche, but I also know exactly what it means when someone uses it.

It's mentioned a bunch of times here, but "seminal" is the one that really bugs me. I always read as "this foundational work that was literally jizzed into existence."

my absolute least favorite is when musicians who are perpetual side players or have played with a lot of different bands are described as "promiscuous"
no.
and yes -- i am aware that the word can be used in a non-sexual way but according to the definitions i have found, all of them carry a vague to serious negative connotation.

demonstrating or implying an undiscriminating or unselective approach; indiscriminate or casual.
"the city fathers were promiscuous with their honors"
synonyms: indiscriminate, undiscriminating, unselective, random, irresponsible, haphazard, thoughtless, unthinking, unconsidered, casual, careless
"the promiscuous popping of antibiotics hasn't helped his T-cell count"
antonyms: careful, selective

"in-demand"?

sure beats "promiscuous" and is more accurate

I've complained about this before but "kiss-off." not every breakup song is a sassy emoji!

The phrase "torturous path" is an indication that with 95% probability, the author doesn't realize there is a separate adjective "tortuous" meaning "twisting, turning, winding".

If cover blurbs are to be believed, every book of history is 'magisterial' and many history reviewers need to buy a thesaurus.

The "artist / album does blank, blank, and blank—-sometimes all in the same song" construction really needs to go

Haha, paged away from this comment and immediately encountered your likely inspiration:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/100-gecs-1000-gecs/

Feels like a pretty effective summation of the 100 gecs appeal in this instance, though.

ick

wouldn't mind never seeing "rootsy" again

“Closer to You” is all snarly synth bass, clattering trap percussion and processed vocals...

I’ve always disliked this particular cliché — “song x is all attribute attribute attribute...”

my absolute least favorite is when musicians who are perpetual side players or have played with a lot of different bands are described as "promiscuous"

forgot what thread i'd opened and was struggling to tie that description to "Get Closer" by Seals and Crofts

From the 'pitchfork is dumb' thread, this exchange made me let out an involuntary guffaw:

I am in favor of descriptions that describe the actual sounds, especially if they have points of reference — I’ve found old albums or bands to listen to that I hadn’t heard after reading a review of a new one I liked.

The reviewer should not, however, say that a song sounds “like artists X and Y had a baby”

― untuned mass damper (mh), Thursday, August 15, 2019 6:34 PM bookmarkflaglink

what if the baby took acid tho

― Οὖτις, Thursday, August 15, 2019 6:36 PM bookmarkflaglink

in the last few months I've been seeing people misuse (intentionally or unintentionally) "gaslighting" to mean a variety of things that are very far removed from gaslighting. People seem to be using it as shorthand for "you are disagreeing with me on this thing and I think you are a moron for having an opinion that is so obviously wrong". It's been misused that way on ILX on a few rare occasions. It was misused that way by butthurt Star Wars fans who were upset that John Boyega had the audacity to say that Reylo made no sense as a shipping. I saw two people arguing today about a festival lineup and one of the two accused the other of gaslighting because they suggested that the only reason they didn't like the lineup was because they were elitist and narrow-minded (???).

a lot of it seems to be thin-skinned people who can't bear to have their worldview challenged and weaponize it in an attempt to shut down the debate. it's frustrating because though we're a long way from it, like "fake news", it's a word that can easily be stripped of its meaning fast if certain bad actors repurpose it.

“butthurt” is probably also a good word to avoid ;)

it's been imprinted within me after years of ILXing, old habits die hard.

trolling = disagreeing now, losing any sense of meaning it may have had

psychedelic

Still better than 'on acid'.

Also i hate "OCD" used as shorthand for "I'm very tidy and don't like clutter".

I have mild OCD and yea that ain't it.

I really fucking hate the word "monetize" but it will be a useful indicator of who should be first in line for the gulags, so maybe I'll have to put up with it for a while.

I sort of wish there was a better word for what people really mean when they say "nature," i.e. bucolic settings, outdoor space, greenery, fresh air. None of this is necessarily "nature." People even refer to farms as "nature" when they are very far from natural. "Nature" is often miserable and something to be escaped. A lawn with a small patch of woods behind it is as man-made as the house overlooking it.

otm, i'm always trying to get architecture students to be more precise about this. pretty much everybody wants their building to "connect with the nature" but what exactly that means to you, and how you're going to do it architecturally, is a space of ten thousand possibilities.

and, like, why it's supposed to be a good thing!

“project”

It’s an album or an EP. Why did this new term take hold?

Maybe someone told them “Use other words please.”

No fan/listener would say it — “Have you heard (artist)’s new ‘project’?” So why do artists use it?