I haven’t been very assiduous in collecting annoying phrases lately, so I have only two. Readers are invited to add their selections:
“Medaled”. This is everywhere in the Olympic reporting, and of course it means “get a medal”. But which medal? If you’re reporting on how many medals a country has gotten in total, you can say “America now has 24 medals”. You don’t say “America has medaled 24 times.” The past-tense verb is used instead to apply to individuals or teams within a sport (figure skaters or gymnasts, for example). For example, you can say that “Mikaela Shiffrin has medaled three times”, but that leaves out the fact that these are gold medals. Curiously, you don’t say that someone “gold medaled,” though that is more informative.
If you’re going to say “medaled”, then you should say that Watson and Crick “Nobeled” in 1962 and Percival Everett “Pulitzered” for fiction last year. The verb “medaled” is not only annoying, but uniformative.
“Do better”. This is a favorite of social-justice warriors when impugning or correcting someone who made an ideological misstep.
An AI definition:
To “do better” in social justice, focus on sustained action over performative gestures: educate yourself with credible, diverse sources, actively support minority-owned businesses, and donate time or money to grassroots organizations. Amplify marginalized voices, advocate for systemic policy changes (like voting rights), and practice empathy and deep listening in difficult conversations.
So the phrase in itself can refer to doing real good, but all too often it’s performative. As an example, one could say, in light of the preceding article: PEN America, “Do better and focus on Israel’s genocide.” I find the phrase patronizing and usually uttered by the entitled. It’s also rude.
Here’s one example from HuffPo, of course (the rag still exists!): “Men: We have to do better.” Sorry, but I’m doing the best I can, and resent the implication that all men are harassers or abusers of women (read the thing).
Your turn.
“Unalived”—I hate all euphemisms for “dead” and I thought southern obit notices were bad enough before this one came along.
Some YouTube presenters say it so that YouTube won’t demonetize their channel. The guy will be reading a Xeet about someone being killed, right there in print on the screen, but he’ll say “unalived” on the audio. I hope this admirable dodge around censorship doesn’t spread to the larger world.
It already has unfortunately.
I cringe at all the social-media influencers bowdlerizing language to deal with real or imagined threats of supposedly getting banned, deboosted, demonetized, etc., for saying (or quoting) something problematic. All the stupid euphemisms, asterisked words, script-kiddie spellings with numbers, bleeped videos, etc. are so annoying.
Overuse of words like these:
“Actually”. As in, “She’s actually been accepted to Harvard.” Why not say “She’s been accepted to Harvard”…what does “actually” add? Add the word “like” in there to make it even more grating.
“Crazy”. As in, “They gave you a soy latte instead of whole milk? That’s crazy!”
No it isn’t. It’s just a mistake. Now if they’d thrown the latte in your face while laughing like a maniac, THAT would be crazy.
‘Actually’ is overused, but ‘literally’ as in such silly statements as, “It was literally true” just give me a headache.
People who literally know that ‘literally’ is misused but use it themselves, and stress the word, to display to the listener that they are better than the uneducated masses. They should do better.
Although sometimes people are too quick to assume that “literally” has been misused: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_classics/1346161-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh-I-have-LITERALLY-twatted-a-spider-to-death
My opportunity to remind everyone of the Chris Traeger character from Parks and Recreation. Literally one of the most under-appreciated TV roles of all time. “The human equivalent of a kale smoothie.”
Great character, great series.
A quibble. If you are using the word “actually” to suggest that something is unexpected, then it is not superfluous. Take, for example, “Trump actually went to Penn.” It’s the element of surprise that is the focus in the sentence, not the fact of his attending Penn. I think the linguists call this a “contrastive adverb,” but I’m actually not sure.
“Actually” can work if it’s contradicting someone else’s previous statement, e.g. “I heard she’s going to Yale”.
I detest the term “feedback,” which in electronic circuitry means something else, for opinions or points of view.
“Journey” to represent anything from growing hair to losing weight. Enough already!
“Oppression,” which can represent anything from genocide in Darfur to getting one’s feelings hurt.
I detest ‘Enough already’. Enough! 🙂
You are clearly not Jewish!
Digon yn barod 🙂
Shalom from Cymru
Many of my FB friends seem to find many things to be
“amazing” and or “powerful” – its not clear to me why.
Suggest you “do better” and get new friends.
Incorrectly using “liberal” when ” leftist” is correct; incorrectly using “progressive” when “regressive” is correct.
Characterizing the circumstances, motives, etc., as unclear when the reality is that no information whatsoever is available.
Way
May instead of might
That is one of my (many) pet hates. “May” usefully implies permission; “might” refers to probability. Unfortunately, this distinction was lost long ago. Even Darwin in The Origin succumbed.
“Bougie” — meaning middle class, or as the “bourgeois.” It reminds me off people saying, “That sooo bourgeois.”
“Makes no sense” to mean something the speaker wants to happen but hasn’t thought through long enough to realize it makes perfect sense that it hasn’t happened if the money flows (not from him) are accounted for. We hear this a lot in Canada from train enthusiasts about our lack of any high-speed passenger rail in our big empty country.
Right, as in “The word awesome is overused, right?, especially by Americans under 60, unless they have kids, right?, whose boring, lazy speech they’ve unintentially copied.” When did this “right” business start?
It’s of a similar species to phrases like “know what I mean” or “know what I’m saying” that are mindlessly thrown on the end of statements. A fairly reliable indicator of lower levels of education and verbal skill.
“A fairly reliable indicator of lower levels of education and verbal skill.”
Bloody hell, that sounds like every standardized test I ever took in school.
Well this one has been remarked on before, probably many times, but I find it so detestable that I cannot help myself but mention it again: microaggression. In my opinion, the use of that word is itself a form of aggression.
“Nobeled” – ha!
My current beef is with the phrase “I appreciate you.” It appears that this is becoming a common way of saying “thanks.” I’ve even heard it on sports TV shows as a sort of signoff between commentators.
That might have come from Ted Lasso. Being more like Ted Lasso isn’t a bad thing.
That “all men are guilty” line was what blew up the bridge between me and the wokes. Years ago I commented (on Facebook) on an article where one left-wing politician sucked up to the idea that “all men are guilty of mysogyny.” A (now former) friend did not even bother to chastise me. He just said “with friends like this, who needs enemies” and when I objected to this, I was ghosted. That was the beginning of my lone march toward sanity. Perhaps that’s the reason they switched from this kind of treatment to “do better.” They were losing people.
Obligated. What is wrong with obliged?
Anyone else ever hear that someone had “repronouned” himself?
IIRC, commentators started using medal as a verb about 20 years or so back. It really bothered me at the time but it’s grown on me and no longer grates. But recently I heard podium used as a verb and I didn’t like it.
This morning I heard a lawyer talking about the arrest of Andrew Windsor and he talked about “misconducting” oneself; for some reason, that sounded strange to me.
I, too, heard podium used as a verb at the Olympics recently: “Team X podium-ed three times before.”
Couldn’t believe my ears.
“It’s not going to happen” when the speaker means “I’m not going to do it.” It’s a dodge to disguise one’s deliberate omission as an uncontrollable circumstance.
That may sometimes be a deliberate cultural reference.
https://youtu.be/Pubd-spHN-0?si=SW8EmZMlMHMivS1d
Unhoused.
Chest feeder.
Chest feeder (n.)
Person who eats roast turkey breast, ribs, or such other cuts of meat.
See also:
Chicken breast, BBQ
🥪
Tee hee hee.
In haste :
[ reads..]
… umm.. actually, this means I have to do some quote housekeeping of my own :
[ begin excerpt ]
“You did in your twenties what you knew how to do, and when you knew better you did better. And you should not be judged for the person that you were, but for the person that you’re trying to be and the woman that you are now.
As quoted by Oprah Winfrey.[5]
Oprah Winfrey quoted this from a personal conversation with her friend, Maya Angelou.[6]
Often misquoted as “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”, “When you know better, do better.” and “When you know better, you do better.”
[end excerpt ]
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou
… which means now that I know better, I’ll do better!
😎
I watch plenty of Youtube videos about old cars, and I cringe everytime someone says motor, when they mean engine. Motors convert electrical energy to kinetic energy. Engines convert chemical energy to kinetic energy. Gasoline and diesel fuel are chemicals. If your car requires either of those two fuels, your car has an engine, not a motor. Want a motor? Buy a Tesla !
So motor cars have been misrepresented for 140 years! I thought motor could be used generically, though we would never talk about a jet motor I suppose. So can we talk about clockwork motors, or do we have to say movement, escapement, driver….?
I detest “pregnant person” when only a biological woman can conceive, gestate & birth a child. I also do not like using “they” or similar when referring to a singular individual when, either through a picture or prior use of the given name, the natal sex is known. The idea of being non-offensive in this case is carried too far.
“on the right side of history.” Comes across as sanctimonious, condescending, and arrogant
Also, it’s mostly used by people who are on the wrong side of history, but in denial of that fact.
100%
I support this comment 110%!
“Do the work” (on supposed racism and privilege) makes my skin crawl.
I’m concerned about concerning. Not a big deal, just a concern.
“Pass,” as in “die.”
“Charles Darwin passed in 1882.”
Whom or what did he pass? Where was he going? What was he up to?
POC. I say this as an apparently colorless person.
I guess it’s handy because it takes fewer print characters than non-white. And we can’t say non-White, because that would imply that White is the default.
I just noticed that auto correct capitalized White! Alert the AP!
Yes, but I think it’s more than convenience, or laziness, or just avoiding an implication that white is the default. No longer are “POC” identified by their actual race or ethnic group, they are banded together as a general category distinguished only by the fact of their not being white, and thereby segregating white people from the rest of the human race. It’s a handy way of categorizing things since under the woke mindset white people are stained from birth with some progressive version of original sin.
optics — as in “the optics of — ” Bah!
Podiumed “she had already podiumed at the Olympics”
Infer instead of imply “are you inferring that I am wrong when you say that?”
Lay instead of lie “she was laying on the floor” (laying what? eggs?)
Learnings instead of lessons “I will take some learnings from that”
I have a general dislike for “verbification” of nouns (e.g. podiumed, medalled, repronoun above), but it has been going on a long time and is quite useful for making statements more succinct. For some reason, I find the term “farewelling” particularly grating, but it’s a handy reduction for “saying goodbye to”.
Misuse of “less” (stuff) for “fewer” (items) has become rampant, such that the latter is barely used any more in NZ (less people, less games etc). Misuse of “infer” for “imply” is an old chestnut that is particularly bad because it is used to portray erudition, but creates the opposite effect.
Finally, superfluous words bug me- they typify inelegance: “have to” and “have” are nearly always sufficient for of “have got to” or “have got”; “whether” is sufficient for “whether or not”; “better than” or “more than” are preferable to “better than what” or “more than what”. These are, ironically, favourites of sports commentators, for whom brevity should be welcomed.
“Amount,” as in the “amount” of people. That locution is spreading across the fruited plain. If that’s okay to say, then surely it’s okay to say “the number of flour(s?), or corn meal(s?),” eh?
“Separate out.” Isn’t “out” incredibly, strongly implied in the word “separate”? Who ever says “separate in”?
And this afternoon on NPR’s “All Things Considered” I heard an interviewee utter “the meta.” It strikes me as fatuous and affectatious. Is the average listener supposed to understand what that means? I know what a “meta analysis” is. I know what a metaphor is, as in Dr. Mardy Grothe’s book, “I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like.”
Also, “able to.” I’m hearing this frequently in the media. Example: (said to the effect by a public official last night on PBS News Hour) “We look forward to the day when coal consumption is able to be decreased.” (As opposed to “We look forward to the day when coal consumption decreases.”)
As if consumption itself (as opposed to humans) is “able” to do anything.
“Manifest” as a verb
“Main character” as in a significant subject to a story
“Gives off ____ energy” e.g. defensive, meaning acts defensively
Interesting take on “manifest” from the Brits:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/c8dm8r06yllo
“outwith” Only started hearing this about 15 years ago and now it’s everywhere. How did we manage without it?
I first heard it in 1994 when I moved to Scotland. It was already common there.
My supermarket (Hannaford) puts out a weekly print ad. This week, it butters (heh) me up: “Nice work adding more good to your shop.” And encourages me to buy their store brands: “Trust the Quality. Love the Save!”
This makes me grit my teeth. That can’t be healthy.
So…
I presume the use of the word “so” as a filler is what you object to, but please be a bit more specific. Thanks.
Such as in response to a question: “what do you do?”” So, I am a (what ever)”
“Let me be clear…” – That phrase is used by so many politicians and other officials I cringe and mute the audio whenever I hear it.
I have never liked medalled (UK spelling as far as I know) but I despise summitted most of all. You successfuly climbed a mountain, use a few more words to celebrate that, though you could have just rented a helicopter if it was that important. 🙂
I have to apologise to the boss when I say that brain as a substitute for think also drives me mad; pace Professor, I live with it and accept that there are days when you cannot “brain”, simply because this is your space.
I’m really tired of folks, especially reporters, saying “claimed without evidence” when they are referring to something thiat is clearly a lie.