I must disagree. It’s extremely useful when working with people who are complaining about some unchangeable fact or situation when we just need to move on and deal with it or simply stop complaining and move to the next thing.
I’ve never heard it used the way you describe (a door, a table) but about situations that are unhappy or frustrating and can’t be changed.
Ignorance fought; thank you. Now I need a piece of paper and a pair of scissors so I can figure out how to make one correctly!
And my pet peeve is when I can’t convince the folks behind the counter that I really do want them to completely fill the cup with ice before they put in the soft drink. Otherwise it’s way too sugary and syrupy and just makes me thirstier the more of it I drink.
“Primal scream” : “despair” -as- “It is what it is” : “resignation”
As far as I care, there is no number named “Oh”. There is one called “zero”. “Oh” is a letter.
One of the cell phone providers, I think Sprint, has gone over to the dark side on this one. Call a San Antonio number (for example) with the voice mail not set up or the phone # out of service and the default message says something like “The number dialed, two-one-oh-five-five-five… is no longer in service.”
AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!
Clearly I’ve given up that battle, and now refer to them all as “fonts.”
I agree with you and the other subsequent posters as to its meaning. It’s become an idiom, a simple canned phrase which stands in for a more complex idea.
My complaint with the idiom is that it seems especially popular with people who don’t, or don’t want to, recognize that the situation actually IS very changeable. So they persist in reacting to symptoms, rather than addressing root causes to prevent future outbreaks of the same symptoms. IOW, the typical Pointy Haired Boss.
e.g. Situation: The TPS system has crashed. Again.
That’s *my *objection to “It is what it is.”
Flavored vodka
Why take an adult beverage that is perfect just as it is and adulterate it with fake flavoring only to make it more palatable to teenagers?
Ooh, ooh, thought of another one!!
Calling someone an alum!!! Whenever I read that, I wonder why anyone would call someone aluminum potassium sulfate, as used in pickle brine. Really, writers, adding -ni, -na, -nae, or -nus to alum probably won’t give you carpal tunnel syndrome, but it will make people think you’re well educated if you use them correctly.
I know you’re being rhetorical, but asking “Why?” in this case is especially silly.
Vastly increased sales seems like reason enough for any business. And I’d bet a lot of the flavored stuff sells to the 20-something crowd too, so it’s not merely chasing the illicit market.
I hate when people do a powerpoint and they just read off the slide. Just print out the slides for me to read damn it, I don’t need to hear your droning voice for an hour if everything’s written on the slide itself. I’ll read it myself and my inner voice sounds like Morgan Freeman
The opposite of find is LOSE.
The opposite of tight is LOOSE.
Someday I am going to LOSE my temper about this and you don’t want to see what happens when you set me LOOSE!
Also, al dente describes a particular state of cooking, “to the tooth”. Pasta cannot be more or less al dente, although it can be firmer or softer than al dente.
It’s like somebody saying “I always like to arrive for events on time” and another person replying “I prefer to be more on time”. You can arrive earlier or later than on time but cannot be more on time or less on time. Therefore, stop telling me you would like your pasta “more al dente” since I can’t know whether you mean more well-cooked or less well-cooked.
Sorry, not buying it.
If the phase can be used to describe everything, and every occurrence, every circumstance, anywhere, anytime, always, then I submit there is nothing that it adds.
Everything since the beginning of time, into an unending future will always be ‘what it is’. There is literally nothing that can’t be ‘what it is’. It’s silly and lazy and redundant.
( ‘irrationally picky about’ is right there in the title! )
I agree 100%. The gripe that it is overused and becoming unoriginal has merit, but not the complaint that its meaningless. Never understood the hate for it, to be honest.
Unless you are using a durometer to decide when your pasta is done, there isn’t some fixed value for “al dente.” It is often translated idiomatically as meaning “firm to the bite.” So…yeah, something can be more or less al dente. What does molto al dente mean, I wonder?
Funny aside: I like my coffee really strong. My ex-roommates always used to complain that they knew when I had made the coffee, because they had to chew it. Fast forward to a party when somebody asks how I like my coffee, and roomie says “al dente!” 
“Where’s it at?” sets my teeth on edge.
And I can understand it if teenagers texting each other use abbreviations like ‘r’ for ‘are’, ‘u’ for ‘you’, etc. But in an email or a text to me from an adult, a coworker, a peer, a relative- basically anyone old enough to know better- that reads like “where r u going 2nite? we r having dinner n going 2 the movies”- GAH!!
I see this on Facebook all the time, and I want to comment on their posts with “Look- I know you received a good education because I did, and we grew up in the same town and went to the same school, and it is regularly rated one of the best school systems in the state. You also attended a very good college. You’re an adult and you have a job and a family and you pay taxes and own a home. So why do you insist on showing the world that you can’t write a sentence that doesn’t make you look like you’re five years old?”
I was all ready to do the research and justify my claim when I stopped to remember that this post was about things I’m irrationally picky about. Ergo, no need to make the argument. I’ll just embrace your helpfulness in proving how irrational my pickiness about flavored vodka really is. 
Many of the things already mentioned.
Minor and irrational: Microwaves that have a read out that says “YOUR FOOD IS READY.”
When, it’s not, actually, ready yet. I will be the judge of that. Last time I shopped for a microwave I made sure to avoid that feature.
Misspellings on professionally-done signs for businesses or products. “Body’s By Jake.” “Condon’s Auto Alinement.” “Bob’s Family Dinning.” “Featuring “Lite” Meals.” (All real signs in my area - if you don’t care enough to have it spelled right, I’m not giving you my business because right there, I’m assuming incompetency and lack of attention to detail.)
Also “Convenient Location!” Convenient to whom, exactly? And, define “convenient.”
Oh, while I am at it: “Construction, Decks and More!” “Heating, Cooling and More!” What the hell is “more”? Interpretive Dance? Custom lamp shades? Kitchen table plastic surgery and cat neutering while u wait? What?
I’m not sure if this is what the OP is looking for, but I believe the “singular they” is an abomination which must be ruthlessly eradicated from the language.
It’s STRAITJACKET, not straight jacket or straightjacket!
Some Shakespeare freak to say The Lard used it, as though that’s a hall pass, in
3
2
1
. . . .
I still maintain that al dente can be idiomatically translated to mean "firm to the bite or “slightly yielding to the bite”. Does “more al dente” mean more firm or less firm? (While I would argue more firm, most people use it to mean less firm and this is what I am irrational about). Just tell me in English how you like your pasta already!