do any terms or words annoy you?
secondly,etc.
amidst, amongst
ironical
Basically whenever someone adds a syllable or letters to the end of a word in a vain attempt to look smart and not like the f***wit both I and they know they are. Also, "extant" in most instances.
Bummer. I do that. (But WTF is extant???)
But only because I am a "bard" - a compulsive story teller/wordsmith. Honestly, where I come from - it only makes me sound like a geek/freak.
If I could turn it off - I would - but only as a gay person would turn off their gayness.
PS: "Firstly" and "Ironical" sound dumb - but I looked them up and they appear to be legit. But I didn't check the Chicago School...
Yeah, they're in the dictionary, I just think they sound dumb, at least in American vernacular. But I'm sure I have my own linguistic lifestyle choices when it comes down to it.
"Extant" means either currently existing or still existing, which makes it less precise and more pedantic than any alternative, hence its overuse in certain circles.
Business euphemisms like "guest" for "customer" or "passenger" and "team member" for "employee" are extremely irritating. So are buzzwords like "buzzword." When companies decided that "layoffs" didn't sound good, they came up with "downsizing," and when that got too tainted, it was replaced with "right-sizing," which sounds even more ridiculous. This is called a "euphemism treadmill," which like "buzzword," is nearly as irksome as what it describes.
When I fly I often find airline jargon bothers me. I'm not talking about the language used internally in the industry, which like most such jargon, has purpose; I mean the pretentious verbosity with which we passengers must cope. In particular, the people who write the scripts for airline announcements seem preoccupied with making them as long and incomprehensible as possible. "We realize you have a choice when choosing a transportation provider, so on behalf of each and every employee of XYZ Airlines worldwide, I would like to sincerely thank you for choosing us today." And of course, "it is a violation of federal law to tamper with, disable or destroy a lavatory smoke detector." Aren't disabling and destroying included in tampering with? Then there is the matter of "pre-boarding." I usually take a pee pre-boarding, but that's not what the airlines take it to mean.
A few weeks ago I got quite annoyed at a friend of mine for using the phrase "faith-based" to describe something religious. Just say "religious" for heaven's sake (no pun intended)!
I know many of the people who use it aren't meaning to be offensive, but I don't like it when people say "gay" when they mean "stupid." I don't think people would get away with using, say, "black" or "Jewish" in the same way.
I was once helping my late grandfather research cars on the Internet and I was stunned to find that a certain now-cash-strapped American carmaker actually referred to floor mats as "carpet savers."
I could go on, but I think that's enough for now. There are a lot more linguistic things that bother me, though.
Yeah, I have a real problem with euphemisms and manipulative language in general that's used to try to change one's perception of information without actually changing the information itself. Although emotionally charged language in general has its place, as to convey an emotion with language is adding that extra information.
People using axioms or clichéd terms without knowing what they mean, or botching up those terms or language in general (which is usually an indication that they don't understand what they actually mean) also kind of irks me.
But, you know, I could care less. That may or may not be how I roll. XD
((Actually, now that I think about it, could care less vs. couldn't care less is debatable. 'Could care less' seems to imply a dismissive shrug or otherwise a threat of some sort *to* care less, so I could see it being correct usage in the proper context.))
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Blaaah! I hate that too...I think of buzzards! EWE!! It took me two years to be able to hear that without getting an anxiety attack. The "picking" part ....EEEWWWWEEEE! Incessant torture.
I can't believe they wanted to teach it in schools. F**k that. I'd move to jolly old England before I'd live in a country where ebonics are taught in our schools!
Ditto. I even hate that word too! Why in the world would Ebonics be taught in school? Is it because people need to actually "understand" the lyrics to all the rap cd's they purchased or do they need to sell more cd's. I could see writing a paper on Ebonics for a cultural anthropology course though. The language of the inner-city sub culture. One should learn about Ebonics but not be taught how to speak it. If a person "had to learn" Ebonics, they would not last 15 minutes in the neighbor HOODS where it is spoken. Gee, let's learn Ebonics and go have a friendly chat in Harlem. "Oh Margerie, don't forget the tea and marmalade". I grew in that and I HATE it. It was a living HELL! I'd rather go to England for the tea, marmalade, and conversation. I like the word marmalade but not the stuff. The word makes it sound like it should taste good but it doesn't. Now, lemon curd sounds bad but tastes good. It's not even curdled. It's like the filling of a Tastykake Lemon Pie without the pain in the neck pie crust. Crust sounds terrible but some crusts are rather good like chicken pot pie crust. Love those English accents...all of them...Londoner, Ringo Star, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester...the occasional Scot as well...
and Irish!
I say it all the time. But I'm trying to learn Italian and it's really fun to speak. Grazi! And Si! And Prego! I don't even realize I'm saying them anymore.
But it does irk me when Americans say "Cheers!" or more likely - say it in email. Oooohhh - its usually those chipper little passive-aggressive Microsoft marketing types - so pretty much anything they say is annoying and out-of-context.
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Comprendre, c'est pardoner.
ThatRedHairedGrrl
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Location: Walking through a shopping mall listening to Half Japanese on headphones
I hate people calling me "fat and ugly" even though I call myself that because once again, the pills. I take a whole bunch of pills for various problems.
FireBird, you have my sympathies about the meds (have you tried explaining this effect to your physician, and did they listen at all?), and I'm with you on several counts.
I hate the medical use of the term 'morbid'. It actually just means 'causing or producing illness', but one, it's inaccurate (it's not inevitable that you will be ill if you have a BMI over 40, which is technically what 'morbid obesity' is - and there should also be such a thing as 'morbid marcidity' which is the term we'd use for being 'dangerously' thin, i.e. under a BMI of 18, if there were any sort of balanced view involved), and two, it does have definite overtones of death and scary stuff, and hence is easily misused by medical folks who should know better to put the wind up people.
(OT for a moment - I also hate the way the medical profession, in which I have a clerical job, uses the word 'abortion'. Medically this means any pregnancy loss, accidental or induced, but in reality it's a hurtful term to use in front of a woman who's just miscarried a much-wanted baby. While I'm pro-choice, using the term in those circumstances seems a bit tactless.)
Back to fat, I also actually hate the increasing use of the word 'obese' itself. Again, it was for many years simply a medical term for a BMI of over 30, but these days it's used to describe almost anyone who's not 'Hollywood thin', from your British size 12 to your 50-stone person who has to be winched out of bed. It's also treated as synonymous with almost any other undesirable quality you want to imply about a person. Even by doctors who should, again, know better, and not let their judgement of the way a person looks (and you'd be surprised how much that skews what we actually know about obesity and health) cloud their judgement. OK, rant over.
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Chibi_Neko
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Location: Newfoundland, Canada
The word "sacrifice"
My husband says this word A LOT when he talks about on how hard we worked to get where we are.
I am almost to the point that when he is about to say it I just want to say... you don't need to say that word, or don't be so dramatic.
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OK - ThatRedHairedGrrl - this has nothing to do with anything...but I still get weak-kneed when I see Kurt Cobain. Those eyes...I still just want to hold him and tell him everything's going to be ok.
Ok - back to whatever is is we were talking about!
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Comprendre, c'est pardoner.
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