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

It's An Annoying Tic Popularized By David Foster Wallace That Is Insufferably Precious

this book from 1975 is amazing and Ballard rightly considered it one of the best books about politics ever written
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fweb2.uwindsor.ca%2Fcourses%2Fleddy%2Fcreitz%2Fmajipoorbibliography_files%2Fmajipoor26.jpg&f=1

The cool kids are saying "automagically."

that does sound cool

"this thing" and This Thing have different uses

[ x ] is a Big Deal
vs.
[ x ] is a "big deal"

are we okay with dis ting

Depends

ok but how about dat ting

not until you're old der

not all capitalisation is Ironic Capitalisation

Millions of German speakers agree.

And Emily Dickinson.

not all capitalisation is Ironic Capitalisation

I cant stand it when I hear someone say 'impactful' is that even a word? Impact is not a property, its created.

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Tuesday, December 23, 2003 11:45 PM (fifteen years ago)

Visionary post.

"In a rapidly changing world/society/environment, ...." or other trite filler lines to that effect.

Also not a fan of those standard form funny phrases people add to their tweet, like "thanks for coming to my ted talk" after the message or something like that. If you don't have the confidence to let your thing stand on its own then it's probably no worth tweeting.

DM overtaking PM, seemingly overnight, is an inexplicable irritant.

"checks notes" is especially bad xp

I agree pomenitul

I mostly avoid this thread for its "old man yells at cloud" feeling, but I just got unreasonably annoyed after doing a silly quiz, when I was confronted by this:

Permission this app to share your results with friends!

Permission this app?! FFS.

getting a bit fed up of 'wholesome' now.

is there another word for wholesome?

salutary? restorative?

not the same!

its root is an old german word for "healing", so my suggestions are quite similar in meaning, but it has acquired a penumbra of connotations that are hard to duplicate.

deadass

a lot of this thread is just Words You Don't Care About

'fair play' - most recent example was something like 'Boris Johnson might be a dickhead but at least he's backing HS2 so fair play to him'

Fair play - acceptable when used by heavily-accented West Midlands types.

Fair play

counterpoint: fair play is the best phrase in the world

Ireland wouldn't function without it

sick to fuckin death of "this is the worst of all timelines", "in this reality [among others]" etc - devoid of meaning and trying to sound sophisticated/wry.

What about 'the best of all possible worlds'?

i dunno as long as there are Panglosses among us we're gonna need that one

tired of the inability of people to simply do things; instead, they have to verb their way to things

I have a deep-seated hatred for the word ‘bespoke’ - it really grates on me for some reason.

I've come to accept it as one of those Britishisms I'll never entirely wrap my mind around. See also: fortnight.

I'd have an easier time with the latter if it were 'fortnights' fwiw.

it's not difficult, a fortnight is two sennights

Now the scales have fallen from my eyes.

the only thing worse than bespoke about is to not bespoke about

It's a term from Old/Early Middle English, for which some speakers the plural of night was (roughly) "nighte" and not "nights" so: fourteen night and seven night.

'homebody'

It doesn't exactly annoy me, but every time I read or hear the phrase "white supremacist" it strikes me as tonally wrong. The 'supreme' part of it sounds far too positive. I can imagine that for people potentially attracted to this shit it could even sound appealing. Is there a better word to use? Or is this just down to people being scared to say "nazi" or "fascist"? "Racist" obviously is nowhere near strong enough.

isn't fascism positive? what's wrong with uniting people and thereby giving them strength?

yes, lots of people like that idea, but the word itself is tainted

I'd argue white supremacy has become tainted also

for my imaginary edgy teenager who is flirting with joining the alt-right, it's not anywhere near as tainted.

you're saying no self-respecting fascist would call themselves or even consider themselves to be a fascist?