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

at my work they're always doing 'scrums' but I can guarantee nobody knows anything about rugby

They should call ideas "farts"

....hotwash?

A military term, analagous to "after-action" or "postmortem" or "lessons learned."

Like, I guess you are supposed to wash your guns or planes or tanks or whatever after a battle? I dunno, I just move pieces of paper around while wearing a tie.

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Hotwash

arms too short to hotwash with god

sounds more like hogwash to me

One of our departments is planning on having "a convening". Meetings are not good enough, I guess.

― Look closely, that is all. (doo dah), Wednesday, March 29, 2023 10:33 AM (three days ago)

I've seen "convening" used in place of "conference" for awhile ... not sure what differentiates a convening from a conference, or if the people that started using it just got bored of calling conferences "conferences" so they decided to use another word to mean the same thing ... but it generally doesn't refer to the getting together of people who all work together already.

I recently started a job that uses Slack instead of Teams or Skype or whatever, and I am finding that I can't quite abide the term "Huddle."

Like, (a) we are not actually on a football team, and (b) it is uncomfortably close to "cuddle," which... ew.

lol! Also the topics that one would "huddle" about if one were to "huddle" would be absurd to think about it in the context of a literal "huddle" ... one of my jobs uses Slack as well, and recently there have been problems with the HVAC system (someone turned off the central heat and no one can figure out how to turn it back on again) and it would be funny to have a Huddle about it being cold.

it doesn't 'annoy the shit out of me' so much, but lately I've seen "the hits keep coming" to suggest a stream of positive events. (two different people in one day!)

i've always used it and interpreted it the exact opposite way - it describing a situation where bad thing after bad thing keeps happening, in sarcastic fashion.

is this a reclamation project?

I guess it started straight then got sarcastic? Maybe the new earnestness is finally here.

i've always used it and interpreted it the exact opposite way - it describing a situation where bad thing after bad thing keeps happening, in sarcastic fashion.

is this a reclamation project?

my instinct is that the non-sarcastic use is a product of stupidity?

“the hits keep coming” is a radio cliché, talking about the number of pop smash hits they’re playing on a row. its repurposing could go either way really, it’s just a linguistic construction to riff on

IN a row

just like DUCKS!

the ducks keep coming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZt5AXpLM2g

somebody just said "sizzle tape"

I know about sizzle reels, but that is the term, sizzle reel. Sizzle tape sounds like... something nasty

a cassette in a frying pan

throw up watch:

According to an administration analysis of what the 22 percent cuts translate to, Kiggans is now on record supporting:

Shutting down at least two air traffic control towers in Virginia.

Jeopardizing outpatient medical care for 162,300 Virginia veterans.

Throwing up to 175,000 Virginians off food stamps and ending food assistance for another 25,000 through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program Women, Infants and Children.

them: 'problematic'

me: DIE IN A FIRE

Yes

map: DIE IN A FIRE

them: This is fine.

"head fake" when used outside of sports, usually by tweeters and political journos

"bowl food"

For some reason I read that as "bowel food" and barely batted an eyelid.

It’s all bowel food by the time I’m finished with it stew

I hate "I mean" as a start of sentence, supposedly clarification but actually carries a strong subtext of "how could you not get this". Find myself using it, too.

ha, I do this all the time

xp - I do this in speech and ... more informal writing (like ilx) ... to intentionally convey "how could you not get this" ... in a way that's less antagonistic than "Unless you are a complete idiot, you know that ..."

but, also ... now that I'm thinking about it, I also use it as a way to signal, "There are other things we could talk about when we talk about 'X' but right now we are talking about THIS ONE THING!"

as for me, I am still suck on "creatives" which I have a visceral negative reaction to, but, it's more complicated now, in terms of who uses it and is it an indicator of cultural snobbery to hate it?

i wouldn't let the last thing bother you too much. we live in a dehumanizing culture, our language reflects that. i'm not saying the battle needs to be about "better" language (this is the misperception that leads to snobbery and pedantry), but it's okay to notice.

People at my workplace have started saying 'revert' to mean 'reply' in emails. It's confusing.

"I'll have a look at the changes and revert back."

See also: ‘circle back’

xp lol "revert back to before you sent the email and i was blissfully ignorant of what you had to say"

that 'revert' thing sounds bizarre to me. most business jargon makes a modicum of sense. that one's somebody's meaningless malapropism being replicated like a cancer cell.

I think lawyers started it.

its one of those that is so widespread for so long now that tbh i think its a bit crankish to insist it has the more specific meaning anymore

Never heard of it tbh!

Yeah, I've just started noticing it in the last few months, but I guess it's been common for a while, especially in India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06FOB-onlanguage-t.html

Never heard of it either, but it's terrible.

imo what's way worse than AI is how often ppl critique something now by saying it "reads/sounds/looks like AI made it"

as someone who put in his content-mine time back before mechanization (i'm talking real ehow.com SEO-game machines-clicking-on-machines stuff here i'm not necessarily being mordant about rockcrit) i haven't minded the aesthetic i discovered in myself suddenly being named (the best we had hitherto being "reads/sounds/looks like jj abrams made it")

also think tbh that the continuity of mass-produced content (its style and function but also literally its method of composition: LLMs are not alive but nor was my brain at the time, is what i'm saying) could do w some stressing in our era of unprecedence-discourse

idk i think when i'm watching a studio horror like the boogeyman and it's clear that its flaws are the result of people making it it's tiresome to read reviews accusing it of being AI-generated, it is frankly lazy as hell and says nothing

but in my example i directly named a piece of mass-produced content so maybe you're right

maybe this grievance was more appropriate for the "say other things" thread

as for me, I am still suck on "creatives" which I have a visceral negative reaction to, but, it's more complicated now, in terms of who uses it and is it an indicator of cultural snobbery to hate it?

― sarahell, Wednesday, June 14, 2023 8:02 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

it feels like a cousin to "vinyls" in some ways but i think it's worse, because i guess vinyls also sounds like some i can haz cheezburger type word, whereas "creatives" makes me think of someone just saying, "i'm spitballing here but what if we diversify and employ some creatives to hash out some ideas. i realize this might be a little above my pay grade so let's table it for now and circle back later...."

yeah ... like there is an exploitative context to "creatives" ... whereas vinyls (which I agree is related) is just annoying in its aesthetic way