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

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

i put "vinyls" in the same annoying but harmless and there are so many other things to be legit annoyed by category as "bonkers" and "kiddo"

"creatives" sounds like variety/hollywood reporter speak that made its way into the mainstream, casually used like some in-the-know bit of lingo. maybe that's why i don't like "showrunners" either idk.

also i think for me, working in the "entertainment industry", it does speak to the exploitation a bit, we're getting deeper here but i don't know anyone who emigrated to los angeles w/me or around the same time who wasn't inspired directly by the kind of work that's simply not produced anymore, and i know vv few who work in the wings of the industry they wanted to. they got swallowed up elsewhere, most happily, few begrudgingly. it all feels like a cheap slurry of empty disposable content now, instantly forgotten, in all areas of tv and film media. so when i hear "creatives" it kind of makes me think of idk jc chandor or chloe zhao getting sucked up into the marvel industrial complex, and makes me actually like guys like George Lucas more lol because at least when he was making his deeply flawed prequel films a couple decades back, it was all his weird singular vision, not smoothed over into a dull anonymous product aiming to please everyone at once.

that's all probably for another thread of course.

not sure if THIS is for this thread either but i hate the thing where people will explain things in a column or on twitter where it's this frenetic thing! They put exclamation points here! We all see it all the time! Brief sentences like this! And that's fine! It's what people write like now! I think they're all on drugs!

it all feels like a cheap slurry of empty disposable content now, instantly forgotten,

yeah, exactly.

'creatives' is even worse when people call themselves that... it's a made-up, bullshit capitalist term, for gods sake don't adopt it yourself

Or the 'creative class' is even more bullshit

one of the salient features of capitalism is that ensures each and every one of us will consume our full measure of humiliation in return for the opportunity to eat, including referring to oneself as a "creative" in order to prove one's capacity for self-abasement

who decides what each of our "full measures" are though? Like, there definitely is not equality in that ... some people have to endure way more humiliation than others. So by saying "full measure" it kinda erases the existence of the inequality of society.

some people have to endure way more humiliation than others

Hot Dog on a Stick to thread

https://img.franchising.com/art/articles/6607_plate.jpg

I don't know whether it's just me but I have lost all tolerance for dog-speak this month.

Not a phrase, but I really despise the 'things that just make sense' TikTok hand motion.

who decides what each of our "full measures" are though? Like, there definitely is not equality in that ... some people have to endure way more humiliation than others. So by saying "full measure" it kinda erases the existence of the inequality of society.

― sarahell, Friday, June 23, 2023 1:19 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

honestly this is a stretch

I am fine with "vinyls" because imo it makes sense for "vinyl" to transition from an uncountable noun (How much vinyl do you have? Lots of vinyl!) to a countable noun (I bought five vinyls at the record store). Previously we would have used the word "record" for the items you bought at the store, and we still can, but since that word can also refer to the album in all its tangible and intangible forms, there's a gap there for a specific countable noun meaning "a vinyl record," and the word "vinyl/vinyls" has come in to fill that gap.

"LP" comes to mind

Platter