For some reason I’ve forgotten to collect and post irritating terms, lists of which used to be fairly common here. I usually proffered at least three, but this week I have two. The purpose here is to get readers to vent about their own annoying words or phrases. And let’s not be Pecksniffs and say “but language evolves”! This is a chance to vent and have fun, not defend the use of annoying terms.
My choices:
Deep dive. This phrase is increasingly used to denote a “hard look” at an issue or topic. I have two issues with this.
First, it’s used because it’s trendy. What’s wrong with “hard look” or “thorough examination”?
Second, very often the “deep dive” is not a thorough look, but a shallow belly flop. Here’s an example from a rag I used to read, the Huffington Post. Click to read:
The article is short, not a “deep dive” at all. Using trendy language like this shows a lack of imagination, a way to demonstrate how cool you are by using the latest argot. You’ll never catch me saying this.
Passed (a synonym for “died”). This word is a double euphemism, for it is itself a synonym for “passed on” or “passed away”, which themselves are synonyms for “died.” What is wrong with “died”? Well, some people can’t bring themselves to say it, even if it’s true.
And there’s one bad side effect: to me, “passed” implies that your journey of life isn’t yet complete: that you’re “passing on” to some other phase of your existence. That is likely to be “heaven”. In other words, to me the phrase denotes belief in an afterlife, and atheists like me have no truck with it. Fortunately, the obituaries in newspaper and magazines don’t use it, and stick with the simple “died.” “Passed” is a word you hear from the mouths of your friends, not in the news.
Now, dear readers, what words or phrases curl the soles of your shoes?
My bad
So dumb to say. Just say sorry.
Ugh. The no apology, refusal to take responsibility.
Part of my professional life- current day job- is teaching adolescents. A short story from last year (Readers Digest version) A child steals and damages items from another. Says “my bad” when called on it. Refuses to apologize “I SAID ‘my bad’. Why should I apologize?” Parent complains about the administrative punishment (in that case, suspension) because “He SAID ‘my bad’. That should end it”
I wonder if “my bad” constitutes “restorative justice.” If A breaks B’s nose, or knocks one or more of B’s permanent teeth out, what can possibly be done to “restore” the situation? There’s no possible way to “restore” the nose/teeth to its/their unbroken condition.
I once asked a second grade student why he did something he shouldn’t have done. He responded, “I’m a child.” I found that response suspect and conniving, his being a child notwithstanding.
“Notated” bugs me, agree with “Passed”, I never use it for dead.
There was a moment in Downton Abbey, when the countess’s mother (Shirley McLaine) commented to the count’s mother about the wills their husbands executed “before they were taken”, and the dowager countess (Maggie Smith) replies, “My husband wasn’t taken: he died,”
Circle back, which is often used by the same type of person who uses deep dive and, to me, is equally annoying. Just say revisit or return.
But now so often it is “return back” or “revert back”.
Am reminded of “build out.” “Out” seems to be strongly implied in “built.” “Up” would seem to be also. A consumer appliance comes with a “built-in” something. Well, if it was part of the appliance it would necessarily have to be “built-in,” just like any other part, eh? I have yet to hear “build down.”
A year or so ago I heard an NPR “Morning Edition” host utter the phrase “on the down low” while interviewing someone. I was irked^3. I assume this means having the essential knowledge about a given topic. Again, someone trying to be cool and trendy.
Build down = Abbau
I thought “on the down low” meant “secretly.” I’m not sure how that would apply to the interview you heard.
When in polite conversation I mention something about my late wife, about her knitting, for example, or the things she liked to cook, I need to say something about her having died a few years ago. Since I’m talking about her, I can’t just turn the conversation into being about me by saying I’m a widower. Nor do I really want to drop an emotional bomb in the conversation by saying she died. Instead I say she passed away a few years ago which is easier on the conversation.
As I said, I have no real issue with these words; I just like to kvetch. If it’s easier for you to say “passed away,” by all means say that.
I use “passed away” to others about their loss until I hear them use “died”. I used to say died and I could see certain people physically shrink back as though they weren’t ready for the finality of death, yet. My losses I always refer to as deaths, though.
Same. Have also had this experience.
It’s weird though because “passed away” means “died”. The emotional bomb is exactly the same. It’s just that, perhaps, by saying it, you are signalling to the other party that you don’t really want to talk about it, or it still upsets you.
I don’t know – it’s just speculation.
“It’s a no-brainer!”
I know, right? Also, “pick your brain” (and, l know, right?)
There’s “by accident” vs. “on accident.” I was raised with the former, but the latter does seem to make more sense in that “on accident” is a better partner with “on purpose.”
Brits say ‘on accident’, yet as an expat Brit myself, it bugs me. They didn’t used to say it that way when I was going to school there in the 70s! Brits also use ‘on’ for phone numbers: “I phoned him on 999-1234” and that seems quite weird to me. To me, people are ‘at’ their phone numbers, not ‘on’ them.
BTW, I used to read your contributions at Patheos, nice to know you’re still around 🙂
Really? I’m British, similar vintage to you, and have literally never heard another British person say “on accident”.
As an Englishman (I don’t really care for ‘Brit’, still less ‘Britisher’), I have never used ‘at’ with a phone number, nor ‘on accident’, which strikes me as bizarre and, possibly, illegal; I have certainly never heard it in the circles in which I mingle. Where did you get it from?
Actually ‘mingle’ is a pretty unappealing word, now I come to think about it.
Some Brits say “on accident” but not all of them, by any means. I say this as a Brit who still lives in Britain and I do not hear it very often at all.
The French say someone has disappeared, as a euphemism for the person having died. This can be very puzzling, until you realize what they mean. After all, someone’s disappearing is a lot less common than just dying.
My husband was a child when his father got a cable from Turkey (where his parents are from) saying “we lost our mother”. He thought she had gone missing during a shopping outing.
“Gotcha”used by young people on the phone to affirm when they got your address or whatever other information you’re trying to relay
“Baked in” or “baked into” drives me nuts, but the worst for me is “at the end of the day”. Even foreign speakers with poor English skills say it. I was at a lecture about ovarian cancer a few years ago and the speaker said it eleven times! I was so focused on counting these instances that I got nothing from the lecture. I told my wife to slap me if I ever utter this phrase.
Agree. I even read articles on line where the author has written “at the end of the day”, sometimes multiple times. It’s bad enough as a verbal tick, but to type it intentionally! What happened to editing?
Yes, Emily, yes!!
“At the end of the day, it is what it is.”
…Makes my flesh crawl.
I hesitate to cite this one, since I suspect it may have been previously called out. And it may be such an obvious, stupid made up word as to need no further comment, but here goes anyway: microaggression.
This word is beyond ridiculous, a silly concoction to take being offended to another level, and to turn discussion into warfare. It’s an effort to impute bad intent into anything the user doesn’t like. Every time I see that I can’t help but think, “say that to me and you’ll experience some macroaggression”. I’m a nonviolent person of course, but that’s how much the phrase annoys me.
+1
It pairs well with microvictim.
I got disparaged on Reddit for raising objections to the word microaggression. I offered my view that contrary to most words it was invented before the thing it’s supposed to describe was ever observed, in the hope that people would then believe it was a real phenomenon and thus begin observing it. I added that it’s used by stupid people with no argument to unfairly castigate decent people who mean no harm. For that I was called a ‘psychopath’ and banned from the sub!
I love Reddit as it keeps me in touch and up to date on things that would be hard to find elsewhere. However, it has the most politically skewed user base of any Web site or service. The level of wokeness is hilariously high, and although I have never said anything remotely out of order, I’ve lost count of the number of subs I have been barred from commenting on.
“It’s not rocket science”. Isn’t rocketry engineering?
Exactly.
I prefer “It’s not rocket surgery.”
“What you need to know”.
Like in Haaretz: “Israel at war: What you need to know”.
How do they know what I “need” to know ?!? 😠
That one gets me, too. I resent it.
Agree strongly. Oxford Universoty Press has a book series entitled “What everyone needs to know.” Annoying.
Be sure to include the NY Times’s insufferable use of that locution. (Am reminded of Hitchens’s acidic dismissal of “All The News That’s Fit To Print”.)
Also: I hear on NPR repeatedly the locution, “States like (pick one of the 50).” I grumble, “Pray tell, just what is that state like and will you name the states?” Also, “a handful of states.” I guess the number of states depends on the size of the hand.
“States like…” : listicle fodder
Like “Deep Dive” that’s one used a lot by the media.
Dropping ly endings as in “drive safe” drives me insanely.
“Put simply”
“lived experience” (is there any other kind?)
Re: a media type saying that s/he was “actually there” as opposed to simply “was there.” Sounds rather self-absorbed to me.
When news folks use ‘Hey’ as their greeting rather than a polite Good Morning bugs me.
+1
Over the last couple of years, when an NPR host asks a reporter a question, one can be reasonably sure that the first word out of the reporter’s mouth in response will be “Yeah.”
I would think that that would be restricted to audio. (Who frequently writes “like” in a print article?) I once emailed FIRE for clarification of a statement in an email newsletter. The respondent’s first words were, “Yeah, yeah, sure.”
“I feel like …”
Ugly on all three words!
“Feel” is a hedge. It warns the listener that you are going by emotion (whim) so “don’t hold me to sound reasoning, but on the the other hand, my feelings are my reality for me and that is Truth.”
“Like” is a hedge. Translation: “There are no absolutes, the best we can do is get sorta kinda near (like) true, and I have plausible deniability that I am making a Universal claim, yet please grant me standing as having made an Absolute Truth.”
“I” is a hedge. “If you challenge my claim, it is a personal attack.”
Hear hear, well said!
It’s not always bad:
“I feel like sushi tonight.”
“I feel like a natural woman.”
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus.”
No, that is different, your examples describe actual facts.
More like this … opinions announced as if facts …
“I feel like it’s not fair to pay $100,000 for college.
“I feel like prices at whole foods should be made equal to those at the Safeway by law.”
“I feel like everyone should be required to vote, like in Austrailia.”
“I feel like everyone in the world should get UBI. But I feel like capitalists should not get it. Hmmm…I feel like white people should not get it either.”
“I feel like we should only have women presidents in this country.”
+100
“Cringe” as an adjective
“Cliche” as an adjective
“Infamous” to mean very famous
Oh, I could go on and on.
What about “genius” as an adjective? “It’s a genius move!”
Very bad.
Hate it!
That one doesn’t really bother me since I pretty much grew up with it, just as, years from now, many expressions we are griping about herein might sound fine to other usage sticklers; it’s all about one’s linguistic experience. At the end of the day, language change is what it is (ugh!).
Beg to differ. When used ironically, “a genius move” is funny precisely because it is dopey as well as ungrammatical. Some of the worst of these phrases can serve humor in the same way. Think of the fun S.J. Perelman could have had with “deep dive”.
Ugh. That’s almost as bad as using “medal” as a verb.
Agreed.
A similar annoyance is the use of a verb as a noun. “Build” for construction (or even building). “Tell” for “cue” or “sign”.
I could go on but it’s too irritating.
Respectfully disagree about “tell.” A “tell” is a cue or a sign that a player is giving off that he is unaware of, which an opposing player has discovered reveals something about his hand. “Tell” captures both the involuntary nature of the cue and the skill of the opposing player who detected it. (A player who has picked up a tell on an opponent will not tell the opponent or any other player, so as to retain his private advantage.). A tell can be faked, as disinformation, but good players can distinguish between fake tells and real tells that the faker remains unaware of.
It is slang, and must be used with discretion. But as a single pithy word, it’s darned good.
And the current Gen Z use of “brat” as an adjective. I’ve wondered if this is an intentional effort to destigmatize the word by those who have been labeled as such…
Also cringe as a noun.
As for infamous, I remember coming across it for the first time as a child in the Airfix catalogue being used to describe the Junkers 87. “The infamous dive bomber” it said. I thought, if it’s in-famous (i.e. not famous), how come I have heard of it?
“Dropped” as in; “the band ‘dropped’ their new album”. Confusing, ridiculous, and means the opposite of what is intended. If I see it, I stop reading.
And tracks for songs – they’re playing our track.
That depends on the context. “Song” implies “singing” (with the additional connotation of “not excessively long, roughly follows a verse-chorus structure”). What do you call an instrumental piece, or a pure rap piece, or a 20-minute prog epic?
Oh i hate that one, yes, as i do using “vinyls” instead of “vinyl” to refer to a collection of records. It’s purely generational of course…now get off my lawn!
I hate dropped. I saw an Ars Technica headline “New Series of Doctor Who Dropped”. I assumed it was a shock story about how the BBC had cancelled Doctor Who. I was most disappointed.
The things that bug me the most are the things I say the most myself, at first as mockery and then fueled by OCD — I know, right? Yeah, no. Yeah, no.
There are many of these inane phrases I hate, but two of the most common are “at the end of the day” and “all you need to know,” especially the latter because the “all” implies that there will be a long discourse on the topic, rather than the three sentences the reporter is about to say. I agree with Curt: dropping the -ly at the end of adverbs also annoys me (I typically shout the “-ly” at the tv). And reporters who start out the answers to anchors’ questions with “yes,” “o.k.” and similar words that are obviously not part of the answers.
What do you suggest as an alternative to “at the end of the day”?
It means (more or less): when everything has been considered and taken into account.
The alternatives I know of (e.g. when all is said and done, when it’s saucered and blown, all things considered) don’t seem any more felicitous.
Ultimately.
Close; but no cigar (in my opinion).
Ultimately we are all dead, to paraphrase John Maynard Keynes out of context. But at the end of the day today, the Government is going to impose cloture (closure) and force a vote in the House this evening.
I think most uses of “at the end of the day” do communicate that there is a looming deadline by which time discussion must end and action be taken. If it is just a vague prediction that discussion will eventually wind down and die from exhaustion, then “ultimately” is better. Like many of the phrases called out here, atEotD has become hackneyed and stale, which is why it irritates. Even colorful phrases that once seemed fresh and original suffer this fate. Too fresh and original is not good, either. Does anyone remember, “Let’s open the kimono”, meaning to have a closer look at a proposal?
Oftentimes, the entire phrase or alternative can be dropped and the meaning of the piece or presentation doesn’t change. That is probably a reason I dislike it. It is usually filler serving no purpose.
The opposite of “at the end of the day” is “it’s early days.”
Both annoying.
Oh great! Haven’t done this kind of post for a long time!
A new different phenomenon that Stephen Knight the Godless Spellchecker noted :
U. S. Southerners say “y’all”
But lately, annoying leftists (I think is what he wrote) say it too.
Stephen wonders why, and I do too.
I noticed “dang” – an expression associated with the South, but lately, perhaps youth say it, and not southern.
I think it has become a lefty thing because it as black dialect too, they being southerners.
I think that the lefty Northerners who use “y’all” are trying to avoid the Midwest use of “you guys.”
Funny how they don’t see it as cultural appropriation!
And all so unnecessary anyway, since you is already plural (as well as singular).
I’ve seen a linguistic chart with regions for you, y’all, various others, and even the uncommon you all. I used the latter as a child, either because I’m from Maryland or because of the additional specificity not provided by the standard language. You can imagine how I feel about they.
In standard Southern English, “you” means the person addressed, and “you all” or “y’all” is plural. “What time do y’all close?” is a correctly phrased question in standard Southern English. You can’t say (without revealing that you are not a Southerner) “What time do you close?”
And yet the rest of the English-speaking world gets by perfectly happily with the plural “you”. I wonder why Southerners are unable to?
IMO, English needs a plural 2nd-person pronoun.
My Mom was from Mississippi; I say you-all.
The Irish say Ye (“yee”)
“You” is the plural. The singular was originally “thou” (in some parts of Scotland pronounced to rhyme with “you”). So thou/you is equivalent to French tu/vous, or German du/sie.
Northerners have their own word for this (a group of persons) – it is “Youse”. Please don’t use “You all” – it is cultural appropriation. And especially eschew “All you all” which we virginians only use in fun.
Based on no evidence, I perceive that “dang” is a way to get to say “damn” without saying “damn.” (Re: “darn.”)
Dang is my go-to word in the case of mild annoyances that don’t merit a full-throated damn. It’s also the word I use when I want to say “g*d dammit to f*cking hell,” but there’s a child present.
Here’s the eXcommunication :
“There are two types of people that use the word “y’all”.
1. Americans in the south
2. Deeply obnoxious leftists.
How did this happen?”
x.com/gspellchecker/status/1839440181558222948?s=46
I sometimes use it for specificity.
Y’all being a proper contraction of “you all”, or, less properly “all of you”, goes back very far in American english. “Y’all need to quiet down before the teacher comes in”, for example, would be an appropriate usage, presuming that there are several students present.
I grew up hearing this in a conservative part of New England. Better than fifty years ago. I think it is quite well and historically established across all political and geographic realms in the US. The Harvard set, of the “prepositions can’t end a sentence” club (I did not join that one when I was at a small school just outside Boston) hated it when I was there, and I took a lot of heat.
It was,apparently, a sign I was not cut of the right cloth, despite being raised, to the extent I was, closer to the yard than the vast majority of my cohort. An accurate read, to tell the truth.
I had a friend who complained heatedly when the obits used the term “passed away” She wondered what was wrong with “died”. And when she died, her obit read “passed away”. Poor Ruth!
“To be fair”
It not only annoys me by how common this expression has become but also by the idea that you now have to tell others that you are being reasonable!!!
Another one like this is “to be honest”. When a friend says it to me, I always reply, “What? You haven’t been honest with me before?”
+1
That’s one lesson my dad taught me way back – I was annoyed at first, but damn it – he’s right – indelible lesson.
In both Spanish and English I often hear “No voy a mentir” or “I’m not gonna lie to you”.
I thank them for the warning.
+1
“Can’t wrap my head around…”(insert mystery). I don’t want my head around anything. Especially when I am driving.
I can’t stand the phrase, “curl the soles of your shoes.”
Heh heh.
Speeches that begin “So, ….” When the ‘so’ is not indicating the next step in the logical flow of an argument, but is announcing that the speaker is beginning.
‘The reality is…’ and ‘the long and the short of it’ are annoying too. In my household we time how long it takes to get our first ‘the reality is’ in the morning news.
Yes. So many people (especially speakers on cultural programmes on BBC Radio 4, for some reason) start pretty well any utterance with ‘so’. It gets on my tits.
Come to think about it, ‘gets on my tits’ is quite an irritating phrase as well.
Sometimes they put the “So” aside for “look.”
“What is your plan for paying down the $31,000,000,000,000 national debt?”
“Look, if you divide that by …..” etc.
In my lifetime, “so…” seems to have replaced “well…” Just a verbal tic to start a sentence.
I heard a sketch on a Radio Four Xtra programme recently about the ubiquitous ‘so’ that had a delicious pun at the end.
‘Why do so many people start an answer with ‘so’ these days?’
‘So it acts as a filler to give the speaker a second to gather their thoughts.’
‘Yes, I get that, but how has it suddenly become so common?’
‘So all it took was a person with influence or popularity in the media to use it regularly and others were bound to unthinkingly follow.’
‘I see. And how would you sum up that effect in just a couple of words?’
‘So a needle pulling thread.’
I fully agree with every item here except the last.
I also hate the currently popular “Why xy is/does xy”…” in headlines, 1. it’s patronizing, 2. the question why usually isn’t answered in the article that follows. And the horrible thing is that a publishing house once forced me to accept just such a “why”-phrase as the title of my book.
I think it is important to know that in commercial publishing, rarely are headlines or book titles the ones suggested or preferred by the author. Newspaper Headlines get me riled all the time, as they frequently misrepresent what’s in the article.
Impact. “His impact on the organization is unprecedented.” “Her election will impact us all.” “He is an impact player.” “We expect inflation and immigration to impact the presidential race.”
I’m not quibbling, as many do, about its use as a verb, but I do detest its overuse. Moreover, something about the sound of the word is more fitting to painful teeth, uncomfortable bowels, and a pending collision for which one must brace.
A phrase I like:
“Hassan Nasrallah is dead.”
Or: 1000 members of Hamas have achieved their desired martyrdom.
+1
I don’t mind “passed away” (I don’t say “passed” by itself; I would never say “passed on”). It’s a softer phrase meaning the same thing. We use all kinds of verbal, social grease to keep the wheels turning smoothly.
I don’t really understand the seemingly common aversion to the phrase “at the end of the day”. For those who dislike it, please reply with suggested alternatives.
The words that bother me tend to be the latest “in” ones. “Right?” as a question. Lived experience. Genius as an adjective. But I try to just ignore them.
Oh, and the numbered list as a headline: “Top 13 things to avoid when spelunking in the sewer system!!”
I use two of the options you listed: When all is said and done or all things considered. I came to dislike “at the end of the day” due it overuse. I just got sick of hearing it and it became something people would say just to be saying it, when no such phrase was needed.
Programmers are responsible for some solecisms that unfortunately seem to have acquired currency. “Populate” a form, for instance. Or “migrate” the data. As a biologist these particularly gravel me.
Another one is “reached out to” as opposed to “contacted” or “asked”. That one really smells of a proleptic occupation of the moral high ground.
This provides a nice selection:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/522558362992510521/
Legitimately does NOT mean literally.
Literally does NOT mean figuratively.
Begging the question does NOT mean raising the question. (‘Begging the question’ is a slightly arcane way of saying ‘using circular reasoning’).
Trouble is, many well-educated people continue to use “begging the question” to mean “raising the question”, so I have to not let it bug me too much. But when I see or hear either of the first two errors, I conclude that I should not take the writer/speaker too seriously.
1. “Militant atheist”
Militants carry guns. The correct phrases are “assertive atheist” or “aggressive atheist.”
2. “It is what it is.”
No, it isn’t. Matters are almost never as they appear.
3. “The music increased to a crescendo.”
A crescendo is an increase in volume. The correct phrases are “crescendoed to a fortissimo” or “crescendoed to a thundering fortissimo.”
4. “Is the glass half empty or half full?
“Half” divides a distance into two equal parts. It is the one position where “closer” and “farther” have no meaning. “The glass is the wrong size” is the correct response because it reveals the misuse of “half” and describes a situation where “closer” and “farther” can have meaning.
Your explanation of number 4 doesn’t seem to relate to the phrase, which doesn’t include the words “closer” or “farther”.
And (4) is about psychology, not hydrostatics.
Number 4 is about the difference between scalars and vectors as well as the misuse of language. A vector adds direction to the magnitude of a scalar quantity. “Half empty” and “half full” assume a direction to the contents of the glass, thus implying “closer” or “farther,” even though nothing in the question mentions the glass draining or filling.
Number 4 is presented as a psychological question to separate the optimists from the pessimists. But the question itself is bogus because it misuses the scalar word “half.” Presentation doesn’t trump bogosity.
Really? “Half empty” is well defined, “half full” is too. It so happens they describe the same static physical (but not psychological) state, without needing any vectors. The events leading to this state may have involved adding and/or removing water from the glass, but the phrase itself only refers to the static situation. Or am I missing a more subtle point?
Following “half” by “empty” or “full” tries to turn a scalar into a vector. “Half” is neither at the beginning nor the end. It is at the midpoint. “Is the glass at the empty midpoint or the full midpoint?” is a silly question, but that’s what’s being asked. The asking applies pressure to pick sides. The pressure isn’t necessary.
Pour the four ounces of liquid in an eight ounce glass into a seven or nine ounce glass. “Closer” and “farther” in relation to “empty” and “full” suddenly take on meaning because “half” no longer exists.
As an engineer: The glass is 100% over-designed!
I don’t understand.
Not quite 100%. A glass is not fit for purpose if you cannot raise it from a table without spilling the contents. A half pint of beer in a pint glass allows you to drink the whole half pint. With a half pint of beer filling a half pint glass to the brim you will spill some and therefore not be able to drink the whole half pint.
As a chemist, I see the glass as completely full — it contains 50% liquid and 50% air.
The glass is always full unless it’s under a vacuum.
“Ask,” as in “What is your ask?” Replaces the perfectly good word: “request.” In common usage at the giant software company at which I worked.
“Offline” as in “Let’s take this offline.” Means “Let’s talk about this later; not here where it would “derail” the entire conversation.”
“Parking lot,” as in “Let’s put that in the parking lot,” meaning “Let’s put that to one side.” Actually means, “Maybe we’ll come back to it later but my hope is that we’ll all forget about it and the question will go away.”
“Learnings,” as in “What are the learnings that came out of this?” (This one really pi**sed me off!)
There are certainly more, but fortunately I can’t think of any more at the moment. The business world is full of these kinds of things. It’s annoying, but the pay is good.
I gather that thus far “answer” remains the name of the response to an “ask.” Or not?
“Answer” largely remained unchanged. But “ask” in the way it was typically used where I worked was to request an action, as in “One of my asks is for you to keep your room clean.” So, in this case, cleaning your room is the desired outcome. One could say that a cleaned room is the “answer,” but I would be more likely to call that simply an “outcome” of the “ask.”
It’s a whole new language we’re inventing here!
That’s a big ask….
Let’s go against the grain: I support the use of the word ‘hopefully’ to indicate that the speaker hopes that whatever he is saying is something that will come to pass, as opposed to just the manner in which he says it.
Unfortunately, it’s incorrect grammar, but I think the usage is a legitimate one mainly because there’s a shortage of alternative ways to express the sentiment, and it’s a commonly expressed sentiment.
“Hopefully no one will disagree with me” should be taken to mean “I hope no one will disagree with me” (he said hopefully).
I also support the Ebonics term “Ima” to mean “I am going to”. It’s such a convenient shorthand. But not so much that I would say it in a job interview.
“Hopefully” used as a sentential adverb rather than a verbal one was always a major irritant to my dad. He blamed Eisenhower for its popularization!
Unalive instead of suicide. Urrgghh.
I read somewhere that younger people started using the word “unalive” because at least some social media platforms were censoring their comments if they used the word “suicide”. (I think this was based on the pop psych idea that discussions of suicide can “trigger” people who would have otherwise gone on living to kill themselves instead.)
I heard about that, too. I think it was Zuckerberg’s response to the uproar caused when kids were posting their suicides. Successful suicides.
O gawd yes. The cringeworthy baby talk term “unalive” has minced its delicate little self into the creeping Safetyism of the terminally triggered, with multiple variations.
Me wants to unalive the people who use it, me does.
Unalive isn’t a nicety used by the easily triggered. It’s code in a subculture of teen suicide devotees used to avoid censors.
Its use may have emerged for that purpose (at least partly). However, it’s now a mainstay of the language used by safety obsessed, harm avoidant young people who would rather be unalived in a wood chipper accident than cause offence. It has to be the ugliest corruption of the English language that is currently in common usage. I hate it.
I’ll be alert for that usage. What indicates that it’s being used in a safety-obsessed way? It sounds like a Newspeak parody to me, creepy, and therefore mostly edgy. Do you have any context citations?
Another problem with “deep dive” is that it’s metaphorical. Having worked in a company full of non-native English speakers, I learned to use plain, direct English instead. I found it particularly irritating when ESL speakers would say things like “deep dive” and think that it was so cute or clever of them.
My pet annoyance is “ultimate sacrifice,” mostly because it’s over-used. I’d welcome anyone’s reason for why it shouldn’t bother me.
“Epicenter” means “the point on the ground *above* the focus of an earthquake.” It does not mean the focus and it does not mean the center.
“Going forward” can always simply be deleted and the meaning will be unchanged.
KIRO-TV has started saying “Thank you for trusting KIRO TV” at the end of their 7:00 news broadcast. I hate that. I simply watched their news program. They should not conclude that I trust it.
Re: your last para.: at the end of NBC Nightly News, there is a montage of photographs of Lester Holt, ending with the caption, “America’s Anchor.” I find that quite irksome. Does Holt not find that embarrassing? (Reminds me of Shmuley Boteach shamelessly touting himself as “America’s Rabbi.”)
LOL. An “anchor” also connotes something that keeps something in place, retarding forward progress. Lester Holt probably doesn’t want to think of himself as impeding progress, but you never know.
Shmuly is annoying, dumb assed and narcissistic in so many dimensions at once.
And broadcast news is unwatchable for many reasons.
D.A.
NYC
Love your point about “going forward”.
I used to get fed up with my daughter using the construction: “I’m so excited for Thanksgiving.”
Whereas, to my ear, it’s correctly said as: “I’m so excited about Thanksgiving.”
I remember asking my cousin, who is a professor of linguistics to settle the matter once and for all. He, rather, directed me to a distinction between prescriptivism and descriptivism.
Ever since I learned about his distinction from him, I noticed that I slowly began to abandon my worries about this and other language faux pas. (Although I still correct folks when I feel I can’t avoid it.)
I now can’t help viewing prescriptivism as a form of classism (which I inevitably participate in, being that I have young kids whom I feel obligated to correct in their language, and am a volunteer ESL teacher).
Here’s a useful video on the distinction between prescriptivism and descriptivism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqO4jcnsSj4
Prescriptive and descriptive approaches are both perfectly legitimate in different contexts. For instance, the Oxford English Dictionary is a historical dictionary, hence descriptive, whereas the Oxford Spelling Dictionary is a working tool to help editors and proofreaders ensure consistency, hence prescriptive. There is absolutely nothing wrong with something being prescriptive per se, and don’t let anyone try to make you feel guilty about it.
Within some contexts, I am a staunch prescriptivist.
When clear, unambiguous communication is needed, such as in many of the engineering situations I deal with, where safety is critical and many of the people involved are not naive english speakers, the prescriptive modes rule.
I hammer my students on this: context matters, and circumstances dictate what the appropriate rules are. In a professional (such as my engineering life, but also, for example, in the sciences) venue, especially when safety or fine divisions are involved, prescriptivism isn’t classism, it is insuring that everyone understands.
In my social life, I butcher the old hags english until it isn’t even suitable for sausage stuffing…
Having no standards leads to the worst outcomes. I prefer excessive prescriptivism.
In the state of California our utility provider, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has had faulty equipment that has been the cause of many of our devastating wildfires. They are constantly running television advertisements to justify their exorbitant rate increases (why public utilities need to spend money on advertisements is a separate issue).
In the commercials, the PG&E CEO discusses that they are “undergrounding” miles of electrical lines to prevent the wildfires, instead of stating that they are “burying” the cables.
However, after reading the thread, maybe she should state the PG&E cables have “passed away.” Sorry, could not help myself!
LOL
Good one!
I don’t despise “pass on”, but I do find it pointlessly coy, and I always say “died” myself.
I insist on using the third person impersonal singular pronoun “one” and “oneself.” I’ve been critiqued by others about it, saying I should instead say “you” (when I don’t mean “you”). I shan’t budge a millimeter.
Same with the subjunctive “were” as compared with (to?) “was.” Examples: “Were I to . . . . ” “Were there any other option . . . .”
Agree on both
‘In this space’ meaning ‘regarding this subject/issue/concern’. This locution is tediously trendy, and is now running amok. In the past couple of weeks I have heard it used about everything from the state of the NHS to the funding priorities of the Arts Council. It needs to be suppressed.
+100
I absolutely despise ‘in this space!’
The false niceties of the enslaved, the unhoused, and the food insecure annoy me, as does the phrase “now breaking his/her silence.”
Enslaved???? Clutch my pearls! You are so behind the curve! It’s persons subjected to slavery!
As well as “person experiencing homelessness”!
Recently heard a podcaster that I like use the term “quantum leap” for a very large change. Yikes. Quantum leaps are incredibly small. (If they exist at all. I’m leery of saying anything about quantum physics.)
I agree; its use comprises pretentious ignorance. Likewise “exponential” to mean “huge”. Exponential means rate of change in proportion to the magnitude of the current state, and can refer to a decreasing condition.
Merkel used this one too, despite being a physicist 😐
Last three I promise:
“Wait. What?” No one’s mentioned using “they” for “he” or “she”?
“*mic drop*”
Now that one galls me.
OMG. Yes! It’s awful. Or, is it “they’s” awful?
This one is ugly, but perhaps necessary …
You risk your YouTube vid getting demonetized or pulled if you say “killed.” Especially if describing suicide.
Content makers have taken to saying, “He un-alived himself. ”
[Whoops, someone above posted same. ]
When you write these I always hold my breath: “Hope I didn’t write one of these in my column.” And I almost never have!
Deep dive is VERY annoying.
I have my own list, of course, most of it woke related. To wit: colonialism (all of it), racism, male gaze, implicit bias, pronouns, etc.
Now I’ll go up and read the WEIT readers list….
D.A.
NYC
My son does this, and I’m too craven to confront him. I notice others in their 30s saying it.
He does something generous for me. I specifically try to call it out and sincerely show gratitude and his goodness. He chimes loudly, “Of Course!” and turns sharply away, on to the next thing.
It is as if he can’t handle the appreciation, using a marginalizing term to deflect the exchange of “feels.”
…………. BTW, “feels” as a noun!”
Maths
British
And Commonwealth (except Canada, and maybe others I’m unaware of).
Yes. In the USA, we also call the subject mathematics: Hence maths. Makes sense to me (as a USian).
Yes, we call it mathematics in the United States. No, “hence maths” does not follow. It has never been called “maths” for short here. “Mathematics” is not plural. Similar: “his approach to tactics in speed chess is unique.”
Each to his own, I suppose. As a Brit I dislike the short form “math”.
Probably due to upbringing.
I should mention that “mathematics” and its short forms are uncountable nouns, so “maths” is not the plural of “math”. I recognise that you didn’t make this error, but I have seen Americans asking why we pluralize the word.
Spell it mathematix and we’ll all be happy.
Mathx, anyone?
Math
Unalived which seems to have been created as a substitute for ‘killed’ is starting to get annoying.
Unpack. As in “Let’s unpack this”
Used to hear it on NPR constantly when I used to listen to NPR.
I can’t stand that usage of “unpack” either!
‘Epicenter’ to mean ‘center’. I have even seen the detonation point of the Hiroshima bomb described as the ‘epicenter’ when, as an air burst (1800 feet), it should have been the ‘hypocenter’.
Also, ‘going forward’ to mean ‘in the future’.
Um, surely an airburst would qualify as the hypercentre? Hypo is “under.”
“It begs the question.” There was a time when I thought this assault on language would fade over time, but I can’t seem to go a week without hearing this travesty.
“Beloved”
Everyone, everything vaguely admired is now “beloved”.
I think you’re objecting to a mis-use, rather than the word per se. My wife and dog are very much beloved to me, with the full emotional weight of that term.
“Can I get … ?” — a common way in which we Americans now order food. (Yes, indeed, you can get! That’s why the items are on the menu.) It seems to derive from “May I have … ?”, which is almost as silly.
There are plenty of good, straightforward, and polite options for ordering, beginning with “I’d like …, please.”
(But please, oh please, not “I’ll do …”!)
English speakers say “get” a lot. I’m trying to reduce it in my own speech & I out even more effort into avoiding it in more formal written materials.
Content. As in, “John is a content creator.” “What does John do?” “John creates content.”
So, hey, hopefully y’all appreciated this deep dive into the in-and-outs of our linguistic pet peeves. To be honest, I feel like this site will always have what you (we) need to know. Sure, it’s not rocket science, but at the end of the day, it’s a fair bit of fun before we and the kitties pass away.
Doug
He/Him/His
Well played
Hilarious!
Colourway when the speaker just means colour.
I spell that word “color”, so you will have to explain this to me 😄
Trivia – my brother-in-law was a member of the band Colours, and their first album was titled Colours. The Dot Records folks decided that the promo would be “Colours is Good”.
“Of course” as a response to “Thank you.”
Adults who announce “I’ll be right back. I have to pee.” “I’ll be right back” is sufficient. No one cares which bodily function you will be performing.
I always seem to miss these when they’re fresh, but:
I suppose “to try and [verb]” instead of “to try to {verb]” will be here forever, but it still grates.
And can we please ditch Iconic?
At least paradigm seems to have died.
Where do I even start?? With the ones that infuriate me the most:
1. ‘Take,’ as in ‘what’s your take on…’
2. ‘Lenses’ of any kind, as in ‘X viewed through the lens of Y.’
3. ‘She’s got a lot on her plate,’ meaning ‘She has a lot to do.’ I don’t know why I despise this phrase; I just do.
4. “Essay.” The very first time I heard this word (I was in grade school) I instantly hated it. Don’t know why; just do.
5. ‘Optics,’ as in “Doing X is bad optics.’ Ugh!
6. ‘Resonate,’ as in ‘This film resonates with older viewers’ or ‘I really resonate with what you’re saying.’
7. ‘Quantum’ anything. As a previous commenter noted, ‘quantum’ means very small. BTW, a popular 1990s TV program was (mis)named ‘Quantum Leap.’
Come to think of it, I despise all scientific terms that have migrated to common misuse and overuse, such as ‘toxic,’ ‘trauma,’ and ‘triggered.’
8. All woke words, such as ‘marginalized,’ ‘oppressed,’ ‘colonialism,’ ‘heteronormative,’ ‘cisgender,’ ‘gendered,’ ‘microaggression’ (thank you for your description of this word, previous commenter), etc.
9. All euphemisms commenters mentioned previously.
Ugh. Now I need some whiskey.
Bit harsh on essay there. Montaigne put a lot of work into that.
I know. I apologize to M. Montaigne.
Burglarised (or burglarized) instead of “burgled”.
It is starting to occur in the UK now, although fortunately not too frequently.
Bacteria, phenomena and criteria, when the speaker/writer is talking about singular quantities.
Even the BBC is at fault here, e.g. “Scientists have identified the bacteria which causes…”.
I was surprised to hear the (British) police detective Edmund Reid once say “burglarized” in the BBC/Amazon drama “Ripper Street”, set in the 1890s in London, which felt out of place. The OED gives the first appearance in print in 1871, but all its citations are of US sources. Reid did have an American colleague, from whom he might have picked it up, but more likely the scriptwriters simply had an American audience in mind.
By the way, the OED’s definition of the word is “To rob burglariously”, which is completely delicious. I mean hilariously delicious.
I agree with PCC(E) on “passed”. What’s wrong with the traditional “Pining for the fjords”?
A couple have mentioned the misuse of “exponential”. In case some think this is a pedantic quibble, I hope it’s not tangential to point out an example with a twist. In its attempt to discredit the Cass Review, a group of activists who call themselves the Yale Group — a couple of them hold junior faculty positions there — took the Cass authors to task for their misuse of “exponential” to describe the large rise in the number of adolescents presenting with gender disturbance in England during the 2010s. They devoted a couple of paragraphs to mocking the scientific credibility of the Cass authors for making such a careless pedestrian mistake, implying their other conclusions similarly lacked rigor.
Thing was, during the decade encompassing 2014, the period Dr. Cass was discussing, the growth in new referrals to GIDS really had been mathematically exponential!
This was relevant because exponential growth is a hallmark of contagion, social or otherwise. (The number of new cases each case generates is the familiar R-value.) Trans-gender activists are ideologically allergic to the idea that gender-questioning spreads by social contagion, i.e., it’s a fad. Acceptance/tolerance of people who are deviant can also spread by contagion but the Yale Group didn’t mention this. They thought they had caught Cass in a “Gotcha!”
We should certainly criticize the misuse of “exponential”. But before we do, we should get our logarithm tables out to make sure the use wasn’t correct.
Agree. Exponential can be perfectly valid. Contrast with linear.
They’re mathematical terms.
I think “passed” was my first contribution in the comments to one of these threads. I’m so pleased to see it has achieved top billing.
“Early vote”, as in, “I early voted”. What’s wrong with “I voted early”?
I’m of an age where people that I knew are now dead. They didn’t pass, they ceased to exist.
Equally as bad as “passed” instead of “died”: “transitioned”.
I grumble at the pervasive and unnecessary use of the word “different,” as in “[candidate x] won the majority of votes in eight different states.”
When I was a child I saw a gravestone stating that some poor sod had been buried there after he ‘fell asleep’, which I thought particularly cruel.
Spectrum. Everything is on a bloody spectrum now. I recently heard somebody describe herself as being ‘on the obesity spectrum’!
Reached out to. What’s wrong with ‘contacted’?
But one that has annoyed me for as long as I can remember – an empty bottle of coke / an empty pack of cigarettes. Aaagggghhh!
One objection to “contacted” might be that “contact” is a noun that has been verbed, while “reached out to” uses the parts of speech the way Ceiling Cat intended. I agree that “reached out to” is usually pretentious and exaggerates the effort involved, unless you are trying to save a child that has fallen into a swimming pool….or possibly if you had been estranged from the person you sought contact with and had to compose your e-mail seeking reconciliation with great care, so as not to come across as a stalker. If your attempt at reaching out was rebuffed with no response at all, can you really say you “contacted” the person, even?
I think people use “deep dive” because they can’t remember how to spell “thorough” or “examination.”
A bit late but one that I didn’t see yet: Have a good one.
I hear this frequently from check out staff and wait staff in particular. I always want to ask “Have a good what, exactly?” A simple “Thank you for coming in.” or “Have a nice rest of your day.” is as simple and more grammatical.
Please excuse me, I have to chase some kids off my lawn.
“the reality is …”
“statistics” when they mean “data”
“breaking news”
“on the spectrum”
‘Kicked the bucket’ usually gets the idea across.
A lot of persnickety folks up in here.
Also, “up in here.”
“Root causes” has valid uses, but it’s routinely used to make assertions about the etiology of social problems that are inconsistent with the available evidence, and to justify not taking more immediate, evidence-based steps to mitigate a problem. For example, “Instead of increasing policing and enforcement of laws, we should be addressing the root causes of crime.”
Redundant pronouns in front of “of”:
“Off of”, which usually just means “from” (“Martin off of Frasier”).
“Out of”, which usually just means “in” (“He’s based out of Detroit”).
Sorry, prepositions.
Still more woke words I despise:
‘discourse,’ ‘narrative,’ ‘community/ies,’ and ‘thought leader’ (How exactly does one lead thoughts?)
“Journey” when used to mean anything other than the act of traveling from one place to another.
Yes, health systems that promise to help you to “navigate your cancer journey” make me want to throw up. If I’d just had chemotherapy, I probably would.