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

i don't like people who say "i wish i would've (done this or that or whatever)" when they mean "i wish i had (done etc)"

those sonofabitches

polymath for obv reasons

I think I might have already said this but it's especially pressing at the moment - I've just watched a Tory MP use it twice in the space of a minute - but the only time I want to hear the phrase "big beast" ever again is in connection with woolly mammoths or whatever.

last chance saloon as big beast stalking horse throws hat in ring

― mark s, Friday, 21 October 2022 13:52 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well it's an animal I suppose.

you have 2 big beasts inside you

The verbal tic of academics of my generation is not "like" but "right?"

— Rafael Walker (@raf_walk) October 24, 2022

"annoy the shit out of you" is a little strong, in general, but i do notice when people pepper their conversations with "right?". i don't think most people intend to be doing this, but i think in effect it creates a weird pressure on the listener to nod or say "right" or confirm that the other person is right, even when they're not sure that the other person is "right", or not sure even what point they're trying to make

i think a lot of podcasters say "right"

right?

...thinks....

I can’t take this pressure, right?

can something be simply whelming? Does it have to be over/under?

over under around and through
that's how daffy duck wipes his poo

whoops, extremely RONG thread

I'm afraid I've reached the point where I'm annoyed with young people saying "Obsessed with" as in "Obsessed with Kate Bush putting instructions for how to listen to her albums on the sleeve" and I know they're not really obsessed with it, it's just something they thought was notable and might get some likes but I still want to shout back "No, you're not".

Also "cackling at".

what about 'low-key obsessed'? does the qualifier improve it at all?

i think it does

but full disclosure i just typed "low key stressing" on social media so i have kind of a rooting interest in it for the moment

but maybe the difference is, i really *am* low key stressing that the frozen cheese pizza is upside down

Have we discussed the back-formation of "high-key" from "low-key"?

I live with a teenager who uses "high-key" as the opposite of "low-key." They will say, "I'm low-key into Genshin Impact," then say, "I'm high-key into Ensemble Stars."

It's comprehensible and arose naturally (as many such locutions do) but it rubs my ears the wrong way.

I don't mind "obsessed with" too much because in the 90s everyone on youth TV said "obsessed by" which irritated me no end. I don't even know if it's grammatically incorrect; I just don't like it.

Low- and high-key were terms used in photography decades ago to describe predominantly under- or over-exposed printing as aesthetic choices.

We talked about high-key on the "misusing words" thread. Though I also ilx searched it and it's been used on this borad going back a ways

From dictionary.com: Low-key would appear to have musical origins, characterizing something has having a deeper, more muted, or darker tonal register. We can find low-key for “of a low pitch” in the early 19th century. Charles Dickens, for instance, wrote of it that way in his 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit:

"She continued to sidle at Mr. Chuffey with looks of sharp hostility, and to defy him with many other ironical remarks, uttered in that low key which commonly denotes suppressed indignation."

I always assumed low-key was a musical thing first, but I don't know that I've ever heard high-key in common usage, or ever actually

The examples I found are p interesting. It tends to get used deliberately as a playful contrast to low-key, but not always. I also think it sounds less weird when it's not being attached to "into" or "obsessed":

What were the low and high points of your day?
Lorde - Melodrama (2017)
It is the 2018-19 NBA Playoffs discussion thread for hoops friends ONLY
US Politics: July 2020 - "Denigrating this Luxury Avenue"
Is SPIN really circling the drain?
Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

the "right" thing is a scourge and anyone who does this needs to take a good look in the mirror

"[celebrity did a thing] and we have questions" as a headline needs to die in a fire

This is the way the world ends, not with a "like," but a "right?”

When I was a kid I remember seeing something in an old joke book where a father says to his son "I've got two words I want you to stop using, one is 'swell' and the other is 'lousy'" and the kid says "sure dad, what are the words?".

Now I am the dad and the words are "OP" and "sus"

THANK YOU

my 13yo cycles through new superwords for “great” every month or so.

OP
brazy
dubs

does OP stand for something?

overpowered, like a weapon in a game

I kinda love Twitch lingo and emotes but I'm too old to say them out loud

I don't really mind sus, which I hear constantly from my 9-year-old. And it played a vital part in this exchange which I will probably remember forever:

-Look at that bus. It's sus. The sus bus.
-What's sus about it?
-...It doesn't look like a regular bus.

https://fachordscdn-16d90.kxcdn.com/static/chords/images/a/sus2/a-sus2-pos-1.png

Just about every time I've posted here, it's been some phrase that is either meaningless or where there was already some perfectly acceptable way of expressing the same thing. Here's an annoying phrase that actually documents a useful idea that nobody thought to keep track of until the last decade: swing-and-miss (not as a verb, but as a counting stat). I think tonight's WS broadcasters have said it 10 times already.

"Swing and a Miss" would be a good title for a big-band-plus-girl-singer album.

“whiff” gets the job done better imo

^ otm and also deeply versed in the lingo

i think a lot of podcasters say "right"

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, October 25, 2022 1:51 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

ime the worst offender of this is Nate Silver

Re "high-key," the slang usage is pretty recent but it has apparently used in lighting/photography contexts for a while.

https://books.google.com/books/content?id=aGDiSYdDmJYC&pg=PA49&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3sIOdpgjQZpiOjDXqYwbo1cTZX6A&w=1280

"Sunsetting".

haha -- did you also get the email from google analytics today?

I most certainly did.

"deep dive"

otm

deep deep dive
So-socialize

people who misuse "longue durée" as a fancy way of saying "long term" can gtfo

"deep dive"

what term would you use instead?

thought experiment
evidence-based investigation
snorkeling without a snorkel
(that it could mean any one is problematic?)