Yep, it’s time for this feature again. (I have been lax in accumulating words and phrases). Note that I am not trying to change the English language here—only saying what irritates me, and why. Here are four examples, some of which I may have kvetched about before:
Advancement. NO! NO! NO! “Advances” has always been sufficient before, so why this gussying-up of a good word? I think the “-ment” suffix is intended to make the speaker sound more erudite, though perhaps people aren’t aware that “advances” is a perfectly good word.
Dudebro. This word simply means “males I don’t like”, either referring to all males or a specified group. Either way, it is offensive and wouldn’t be tolerated if there was a similar word for women (there probably are, but I’m not going to suggest any.)
“It is what it is.” This seems to me, on the surface, a redundancy. Things are what they are. Yes, of course! I suppose it could be construed as meaning, “These things can’t be changed,” but why not use that phrase instead of one that’s either ambiguous or redundant. It also implies that what is cannot be changed, which stifles progress.
“That is so niche.” This clearly means “this is too specific” in some sense. But “niche” is a noun, not an adjective. I’m sure it’s too late to stop this one, just as it’s impossible to stop “genius” being used as an adjective instead of a noun, as in “here are ten genius hacks for your closet”.
Cringe as an adjective, as in “That’s so cringe.”
Personally, I’m quite fond of that one. It’s useful. As is “She’s / He’s so extra.”
But extra WHAT? What if he’s extra obnoxious?
Oh please, let’s all “pivot” away from that topic…
Or maybe “lean into” it instead.
But that isn’t what it means. It’s used for people who are attention-seeking and dramatic. Useful word for teenagers because so many of them are! 😀
Of the four, “advancement” bugs me the most.
Now, I know that language can’t be legislated into existence, but if I had the power to do so, here’s my offering: governorial. Why isn’t this a word? Consider my logic, which is impeccable: senator, senatorial race; governor, governorial race. Also, last I checked, no one has ever been a gubernor of a state.
And I don’t want to hear about Latin roots!
I suppose “gubernatorial” implies that gubers (spell-check wants me to spell “goobers”, as in Goober Pyle?) run for governor. “Goobermint” seems more applicable nowadays.
Though ‘advancement’ bugs me too,
1) Francis Bacon wrote The Advancement of Learning in the early seventeenth century;
2) Reginald Hill, one of my favourite crime writers in previous decades used the same or similar title for one of his Pascoe and Dalziel series, IIRC;
3) ‘advancement’ is used sometimes for the progress/promotion of royal favourites in history books and, I think, is also used sometimes in reference to progress through military ranks;
4) ‘self-advancement’ is occasionally used for ‘self-promotion’.
What about NAACP ?
Woah – never saw this coming!
Agree – what is it with “it is what it is”? I think it only works at all in a social setting or something, as I noticed (or not) recently.
I’m reminded of, “This is the reality I live in.”
My list:
“grow our business”
“a big ask”
He “graduated high school” (no “from”)
I can’t place the memory, but I remember seeing “graduated college” in something I read a few months ago. Is it a Briticism, perhaps? Hmm.
Actually the correct phrase is “he was graduated by the university”.
If memory serves me, one also “matriculates” (or “is matriculated by”?). Re: “alma mater.”
Yes, my mother — a librarian and the daughter of two high school teachers– always insisted that “graduated from” was incorrect and had to be “was graduated from.” L
3 of my non-faves🙀
And no “was”: “He was graduated from…”
“A big ask” was solely Australian and NZ English until quite recently (and used sparingly). I wonder how and when exactly it made the leap to become international.
Parallel construction to “He flunked high school” ?
A few more:
I know where you’re coming from.
His cancer journey….
Here’s where I’m at.
Grammatical considerations would rule out two of those, but who pays attention to grammar anymore?
Maybe just me? For some reason “reaching out” (in various forms) bothers me. Also not fond of “at the end of the day.”
Agreed! I am also really tired of the news folks saying that they are “going to break it down” for me, when they simply mean more details to come.
Not to mention “deep dive”…
I really get annoyed with …
… this is wrong on so many levels
… hard pass
I just retired and won’t miss hearing…
… I’ll give you 10 minutes back (used when a conference call ends early
… Think outside the box
… Take this offline
Jerry Seinfeld, on “it is what it is”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI02o7dJc1Y
I disagree with Seinfeld, who seems to be arguing that the phrase has no meaning. Is that your gripe too? Doesn’t the audience understand the meaning? (They gave him a lot of applause!) “It is what it is” is short and elegant for a lot of meaning, I think. For example it means, “a lot of people have tried to change it, but all have failed.” Or, “it’s been like this for a long time, and our society/company/people are never going to change.” etc.
But people will all have their pet peeves… it is what it is;-)
It’s a close relative of Popeye’s “I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam”, which seems sufficiently meaningful that I have used it on occasion. And I also use “‘Tis what ’tis” (pronounced “tizwa tiz”), for resigned acceptance.
Oh, I’ve been waiting for this one to come around again!
Here are mine:
1) “Absolutely” instead of e.g. “yes”
2) “My truth”
3) “Energy” in the sense of whatever kind of woo you can think of.
I feel somewhat better now.
And “no problem” instead of “thank you.”
And “I’m good” rather than no thank you.
Where I live in Virginia, “no problem” is used in place of “you’re welcome.”
Adolescent behind the counter hands you your cheeseburger and fries. You say, “Thank you.” Adolescent replies, “No problem.”
I guess you’re supposed to be relieved that the person getting paid to hand you your order wasn’t inconvenienced by doing their job?
Urgh, yes, this frosts my toasties.
Here in Connecticut, teens and young adults say “Of course” instead of “You’re welcome.” I don’t know how widespread this is, or how it started, but I’m a grumpy old man and I don’t like it.
Another one that annoys me is the use of “lay” for “lie:” “I was laying on the bed.” It took my 4th-grade teacher ten seconds to make the difference clear: “I am laying the book on the table. The book is not laying on the table; it is lying on the table.” I almost never hear anyone use the word “lie” in this sense.
I dislike the word techbro (and even more its relatives stembro and nerdbro) because to me they are just new versions of egghead, nerd or geek, a way how to stigmatize people who are interested in science and technology – commonly used outside of the original Silicon Valley context (new words were needed since nerd and geek have been reappropriated).
Recently also used by the journal Science:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu3202
I loathe the loss of differentiation between similar words with very different meanings. Two examples:
Empathy instead of sympathy and disinterested instead of uninterested.
And “empathetic” rather than the preferred “empathic”
I just learned something from you. Probably because I watched too many episodes of Star Trek, I thought empathic implied mind reading.
I should have known better – I’m a retired English teacher!
Star Trek’s The Empath is where I learned the word too. Rather, I studied up on the term, as “empath” is a back-formation by the episode writer Joyce Muskat, and “empathic ” isn’t in the script (though nor is “empathetic”). I’m glad you weren’t MY 10th grade English teacher, because, wiseass me, I corrected her in front of the whole class when she said “empathetic”!
I’ve been seeing “ugh” a lot among certain folk as a stand-alone response to any commentary that seems to them inexplicably politically unconscionable, e.g.:
“Wow, Elon Musk just launched the first pole-to-pole astronautic mission!”
Certain folk:
“Ugh.”
“Unpack” as used by media-casters in “we have a lot of information about this to unpack over the next hour”. Or “there’s a lot to unpack here”.
I find the use of tons in any context other than describing weight/force irritating. Examples:
There was a ton of excitement in the air….
She had a ton of homework to do.
He has a ton of talent.
We had a ton of rain.
Use units correctly, people!
How about shitton?😬
…or the vague and immeasurable “boatload of cash”— although I’m sure I’d rather have a gunboatful than a rowboatful
Well, I would start this with “Don’t get me started”, but I hate that phrase. My biggest gripe is the death of the adverb. What do people have against words that end with “ly”? Live simple. Eat smart. Buy local. Stop it! Next in line, “epicenter.” The seismic activity associated with earthquakes occurs below the surface of the Earth. The epicenter is the location on the surface directly over the seismic activity. Washington D. C. Is not the epicenter of politics, it’s the center. Columbia isn’t the epicenter of cocaine production and East L.A. isn’t the epicenter of gang activity. Unless the cocaine production and gang activity are happening underground, those phrases make no sense. Do people use “epicenter” because it’s a longer word and sounds more intense?
Thanks! I was just coming here to complain about ‘epicenter’.
There was a famous Apple slogan Think different, a reaction to IBM’s slogan Think. Then I saw Linux wallpapers that read Think correctly.
“Storied”. This seems to mean anything from “renowned throughout human history” to “frequently mentioned on X”. So it is hopelessly imprecise as well as irritating.
In the UK, politicians have got into the habit of describing Government Departments or other institutions as “not fit for purpose”, but promising to address problems “with a laser-like focus” and to solve them “at pace”. “Quantum leap” often makes a guest appearance as well. These tired old clichés have been knocking around for at least 20 years, and are long past their “sell-by date” (another one). Time they were all consigned to the dustbin of history.
“lived experience” continues to drive me insane.
This one is on my list of most annoying expressions.
Exactly. All experience is lived.
And “Columbia” instead of “Colombia”. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Oh, unless you mean Columbia! 🙂
Some of my “favorite” annoying expressions have already been mentioned, like “I’m good,” “no problem,” and “unpack” (the last used mostly on news broadcasts). One that seems to be typical of this area of south central PA is “no worries,” used instead of “no problem.” It’s also used when someone forgets to do something minor and apologizes, whereupon the other person says “no worries” (meaning “that’s o.k.”). One word my sister consistently uses incorrectly is “unique.” Everything that’s even a bit unusual is “unique.” Since she lives in southwest MI, I don’t know whether that is typical in that region or it is just an idiosyncrasy of her speech.
“No worries, mate” has been ubiquitous in Australia forever.
Where I live, a common opening phrase is
“I just feel like that…” followed by a convoluted rationalization of why a set of facts is somehow inadequate to understand an issue.
It’s comes up after an exchange of agreed upon facts leads to a different understanding of what those facts imply.
It’s often preceded by the other annoying phrase,
“I know, but”….
I’m continually tired of everything with any merit or significance being Iconic.
And also the never-ending “…to try and [verb]…” instead of “‘…to try to [verb]…”
Not a fan of “notated”
How about ‘center’ instead of ‘epicenter’.
I remember reading in ‘Ruin from the air’ the mention of the ‘epicenter’ to mean the point on the ground immediately below the air burst at Hiroshima. It’s the hypocenter!
I don’t know the etymology of “it is what it is” (and I’m not bothering to look it up), but I do remember hearing it in Plattdeutsch, the dialect spoken in the very northernmost Germany, where the landscape is very flat! They say, “Et Es Wat Et Es” notice the very close similarity to English, which is spoken right across the English Channel there. Maybe it came from the Brits? It’s been around a while, at least in North Germany, because this dates back to the 1970’s. Many other gripes I’m seeing in the comments are novelties, and I can surely understand a resistance to novelty in language.
All language is and should be interpreted in social context. So “it is what it is” is not meant to be a literal relay that something is what it actually is. It’s meant to mean that sometimes we have to accept things the way they are. Everybody knows this is what it means. So I don’t understand objecting to the phrase because of its literal tautology.
I like the phrase.
I also like it.
Years ago, I heard an ad on the radio for a language school, that went something like this:
-Can you say “It is what it is” in Spanish?
-No.
-Can you spell “socks?”
-Sure. S-O-C-K-S.
-You just said “It is what it is” in Spanish! “Eso si que es.”
-Wow! Learning Spanish is easy!
“Accessible” has gotten on my nerves. Consider a book reviewer (actually Ai, which I consulted) announcing from Mt. Olympus that, in comparing two books on the U.S. invasion of Grenada, one is more “accessible” than the other. How does one know that with reasonable certainty? (I would think history generally easier to understand than STEM topics.) Is the claim made on the basis of statistical research? It would seem that the less one knows, the less intellectually curious one is, the less able to read one is the less likely that any given topic is “accessible.”
“Accessible” = “f•ckwit-friendly”.
And as the song might have said, everyone‘s a frequent f•ckwit sometimes.
Wow, that’s opened an outpouring of hated phrases. Plenty come to mind:
“going forward” instead of “in the future”
“quote unquote [other words starting with the quote]” instead of “quote [the actual quote] unquote”
“we’ll see what happens”
“quicker” instead of “quickly” and similar, e.g. “direct” instead of “directly”
“n times less” instead of “an nth of”
“three times more than” instead of “three times [the quantity of]”
But I’m frequently coming across abominations of the English language, especially out of the mouths of politicians (particularly a prominent current one).
“Twice as slow” used to bother me, until I decided that in popular culture there is a dimension of inverse speed called “sloth” (pronounced “slowth”, as the British do). Also, “twice as short” measures shorth, “twice as dumb” measures dumbth, etc.
Hey, I like “dudebro”.
Disagree on niche. Starting around 2000, it has been used as an adjective, as in “a niche interest.”
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=niche+interest+&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en
Oh, hated words and phrases, eh? Yeah, whatever. Some rankle, and some do not.
How about “The Eleventh Hour?” Contrary to common usage this is not the last hour, it finishes at 11 o’clock.
Good point! Thanks. Like “the twentieth century”, “the third millennium BCE”, etc.
How about “Timely” misused as an adverb when it’s really an adjective (don’t let the “ly” fool you.) The adverbial phrase is “on time”.
eg: Why It’s Important to File Your Tax Return Timely, Even if You Can’t Pay
Timeously?
Bedtime for me…having spent most of the day “finding my voice, standing in my power, navigating my journey, revising my narrative, and coming from a place of love. I’m so over it.”
“Going forward” can almost always be simply removed from the sentence without in any way changing the meaning.
“Lived experience” is used as a license to ignore the real world for own’s own fantasy.
“You know what I mean?” drives me bonkers. Someone will say something straightforward and then follow it up with the entirely unnecessary phrase. “Wow, the sky is blue today–d’ya know what I mean?”.
True, “It is what it is” has a connotation of resignation. But sometimes that is appropriate. There are any number of unwanted or unpleasant conditions that we simply have to accept. Question, would “That’s life” be a better phrase? Or is “that’s life” also objectionable to those who dislike “It is what it is”?
Unpack. As in unpack propositions, theories, beliefs, statements. It seems especially popular in academia. I see it in English as well as in my native Swedish, but it is even worse connotation-wise in Swedish. It makes my skin crawl.
“Chaos” – seems to be the word used very recently for anything the current administration does. I’d add that I find these types of meme (or more appropriately, forced meme) words objectionable and will tune out the speaker of them quickly. It’s like an alarm bell going off in my head – once the word pops up, I know it’s either A) a centrally coordinated PR activity, or B) a means to signal your social tribe. Both indicate to me a lack of intellectual agility.
Note: I almost ended that paragraph with, “Both are problematic”, but “Problematic” is maybe the word I really hate the most. Is it a problem or isn’t it? It’s a weasel word.
I also can’t stand headlines that say “Experts say…”.
Finally, I find comparisons of Trump and Republicans to Hitler and nazis, and calling out any activity that they do as fascism as being childish and weak. We see photos every day on WEIT of real people murdered by actual nazis, and to put Trump and other R’s in the same category serves to lessen the atrociousness of the Holocaust as well as exaggerate the actions of the current administration. Deporting a person who’s in the country without authorization with an arrest record for spousal abuse and with MS13 symbols tattooed on his knuckles is not the same as murdering 6 million innocent men, women, and children.
I hadn’t noticed “it is what it is” until I read All the Pretty Horses. One of the cowpoke protagonists (Lacey?)was regretting the events that led to a problem they both faced instead of discussing what they might do to get out of it. His sidekick John Grady said this and started talking about what they must do. It makes a lot of sense in this context.
On a tangentially related note, it annoys me whenever anyone fails to pronounce the middle C in Connecticut!! Straighten up and fly right, people!
Oh! I’ve never heard it pronounced that way! Like, ConNECKticut?
When did “whoa” become “woah”?
And when did the pronuncation of niche become “neesh.” It’ll always be “nich” to me.
How about “you know”. Well, maybe I do know, and maybe I don’t. But people who us this can say it mindlessly 3-4 times in a sentence. I hate it!