Oh, come on, Byz, you are the embodiment of all evil, not just some evil. 
Allright. My profession represents the epidome of annoying pretentious words used for the sole purpose to sound smarter. Yes, law wins by a mile! In fact, there is a damn good argument that the profession’s niche is based on this proposition. (Note: It’s not quite true, but it IS a damn good argument.)
Actual words I heard yesterday in one 10 minute oral motions argument by opposing counsel:
heretofore
aforementioned
opined
sans
ubiquitous
Now, I know that list does not look to long, but he just kept using them. Moreover, he had this annoying habit of using these words and then smiling to his client. Example: “This Court should note that the aforementioned case directly opined on the presently-ubiquitious Miranda warnings … blah, blah, blah…” (Then look to client and smile.)
This went on for ten Freaking minutes. Hey! Everybody look at me! I can say big words and waste time with the best of them. I can also charge more for using these words while fooling my client into thinking I’m competent! Yee-Haw!
BTW: When you here a lawyer speak like that, it almost always means he’s losing. This guy lost in record time.
This is more of a letter-to-the-editorism than something a normal human would say in real life, but the phrase “I think not” has a really obnoxious air to it. As in, "Does Hillary Clinton really have a mandate to wear flashy pantsuits in Congress? I think not.
PLEASE, newspaper/website editors, stop using the headline "All Eyes On…(Florida, the Supreme Court, Wall Street, etc. etc.). It’s been overdone well beyond the point of nausea.
Byz, I do hope you are kidding about pronouncing “flaccid,” otherwise I’d be concerned about the condition of your own education(*). Pronouncing “flak-sid,” in my opinion, would be the height of pretentiousness. Just like people who say “for-TAY” for forte. It’s acceptable, but just sounds plain annoying. I think I’d smack the shit out of anyone who tried to correct me for saying “flas-id.”
As an aside, The Washington Post’s “Style Invitational” contest a few years back challenged entrants to devise the most pretentious possible statement. The winner was, “O.J. whom?”
For the record, Merriam-Webster has this to say:
(*) allow me to submit “or lack thereof” as another one
Lissa, did you mean “paradigm”? I tried to look up “paradeim” and could not find it. Can you clear this up for me, please? (add a ;o), as though it is necessary).
As for me, I can’t stand it when people use any of the following terms incorrectly:
i.e.
e.g.
etc.
ad nauseam
It’s like they are trying to sound smart, and dropped the chalupa.
Further, I get annoyed when someone, but ususally it’s my dad, continually throw in an extra “is”, e.g. “The reason you may run into that is is that not everyone thinks like you do…”. Am I the only one who can see that the extra “is” is completely unecesarry? Every time my dad and I try to have an intelligent conversation, I can’t continue because I can’t get past how stupid that sounds. Worse, he attributes my bowing out to his superior debate and conversational skills.
And that’s not all. Did you ever see The Program? The main character is trying to impress a girl, so he says something like “I realize my potential, so therefore I have dedicated myself to achieving on a level more commensurate with my ability.” She tells him that just because he can read a thesauras, he only sounds like a stupid person trying to sound smart.
My point is that anytime someone does this, the result is the same. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, you still come off sounding like an asshole, which leads me to the next thing that I can’t stand:
Corporate double-speak assholes! I can’t stand they way these yes-man dipshits talk. You majored in bus. admin., not english, you shmuck, so stick to pie charts and power lunches!
“It has become necessary to re-arrange our strategic beliefs in an effort to better align them with our primary action items. In the foreseable future, it may become necessary to evaluate our core competencies and determine the strengths and weaknesses thereof based on a strong predisposition to improvement.”
Let me just send a memo that says “WTF?” out to my team…
Also, why can’t they just tell you to “keep it down, I can’t hear myself think,”? Why do they think it is necessary to confuse you into silence by saying something like "In an effort to control the ambient noise level, I am going to have to ask you to modify your speaking tones to an acceptable indoor level. " I can only gape in wonderment and be silent as I contemplate the grisly demise of my pointy haired boss, who has no idea what he just said, but it’s on the cheat-sheet his boss gave him next to “Too loud”.
I also hate it when someone uses a foreign term to modify an english word, such tre spicy or chez Burger King. These terms only make you look like a snooty dickhole, and make me want to kick your lily ass.
Also, do not use a foreign term if you don’t know what it is. For example, don’t use je ne sais quois if you don’t know what the term implies. And don’t be redundant with it, either. For example, if you say something like “She’s got a certain je ne sais quois that I just can’t explain. It’s hard to describe, I can’t put words to it,” it will cause me to fight not to hit you in the mouth with a hammer.
Don’t overdo the pop-culture thing. I know you watch Friends, but I can live without all the constant reminders, okay? The drawn out “sooooooooo” is friggin’ annoying, especially when you use it every other minute. And I don’t care if what I just told you was “too much information”. Get over it, already.
And that’s all I have to say about that. I think.
And she’s imposing enough when she’s gruntled!
(snork, snork, snork)
Anyone else notice this thread has contorted itself right out of shape from the original OP? (Just a poster observation! Put away your Depends!)
Dunno, just suddenly found it funny; all the corrections in the interest of unpretentiousness.
Veb
From my mudda-in-law:
at all becomes attall.
vase is of course vahz. (are daisies dahzies? sheesh!)
Lebanon is The Levanon. She insists on saying it that way. Can’t for the life of me figure out why.
coupon is of course q-pon. There’s a few other words she says like that too.
In between, with stuff she doesn’t think about when saying it, she frequently sounds like a ditchdigger’s wife. Very disconcerting.
Perhaps she’s thinking of the word Levant, which comprises the countries bordering on the east Mediterranean (including Lebanon)?
Again, dictionaries allow for both pronunciations. I was raised to say “q-pon,” so I cringe whenever I hear “coo-pon.” <shiver> Perhaps this is a regional difference?
syrup!
it’s sir - up
not seer - up
I know both are acceptable…but they shouldn’t be!
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread.
I love this thread. One tweaker opens this puppy and it is a veritable pig pile of the truly uptight. I wonder how y’all deal with real problems.
This is just a trifling distraction from my real work - curtailing the population explosion, starvation, racism, violence etc.
Don’t get me started on y’all and other trademarks of the professional Southerner ;).
Y’all is a perfectly good contraction. One of the few good things I brought out of seven years of living in Austin. Yes, Texas is the South. (But Austin is to Texas, as Berlin was to the Eastern Bloc). Anywhere they talk like that, it is the South. I grudgingly admit that I hate the South. They don’t have a monopoly on toothless reprobates but when they twang like that, it is so much worse. They still reel and whine from losing the “War of Northern aggression”. I say bring Sherman back to finish the job. A ten mile swath was hardly enough.
Before y’all pigpile on the Timelight (I am sure the posters in this thread will love the third person reference to myself), bear in mind that I know my prejudice is just that. Narrowminded. I have a few brilliant Republican friends with a serious drawl who eloquently repudiate my bias, but I just can’t shake it. Bring it on…
As a counterbalance to the “y’all” issue, how about a moratorium on the written or self-conscious verbal usage of “fuhgettaboudit”? There’s nothing more hapless than a wannabe New Yorker.
Back to my cold fusion experiments.
We need to establish a fine or jail term for use of the phrase “rush to judgment” by defendants, pundits, lawyers or anyone of that ilk.
I had a friend that used to pronounce picture “pitcher.” I know that’s not pretentious, it’s just stupid, but I would get violent hearing it.
When one uses the word “one”, it makes one want to throw up, vis-a-vis pretentious shite. “Utilize” instead of “use” which means the exact same thing, also drives me nuts! Sorry I meant drives “one” insane!
Yes, it makes [del]me[/del] one want to puke [del]my[/del] one’s brains out, which the zombies then gleefully lap up.
I think it was a sneak-brag. 
It’s already been mentioned, but I’ll add another vote for sans.
One that hasn’t been mentioned yet is crudites.