meme.
How would you have phrased that one differently?
I thought “you know” would have been mentioned by now. Maybe because it’s more of a meaningless phrase than a word. I lose count of the “you knows” sprinkled in conversations these days. One of the regionally syndicated talk shows here hangs up on people who call them after the fourth or fifth “you know” from the caller and it always makes me feel good when they do.
We don’t know - tell us.
That one was okay, grammatically, I just thought three times in one article was funny. “Establish myself” is an athlete’s cliche on its own.
“the way forward”
This irritates me because it conceals a certain assumtion. In order to move forward, you first must know which direction actually is forward. Hence, to describe a plan as “the way forward” assumes that everyone agrees what goal we’re moving towards, and at most there’s disagreement about how to reach that goal. Almost everyone who uses that phrase, whether it be my director of teaching or President Bush, is trying elide over a disagreement about what the goal is. Hence most ways forward actually look like ways backward to many of the people involved.
Other nominees:
“literally”
Typically used to mean “not literally”.
“clinically”
Typically used to mean “not clinically”.
“elite”
When someone claims to be fighting against elites, they’re usually fighting for one set of elites against another.
“politcally incorrect”
In most cases one can simply substitute “incorrect”.
“On the ground.”
Bonus points for “the reality on the ground.”
It would be bad enough if it were still only used in the context of the Iraq war, but now I hear it everywhere. Who coined that phrase anyway?
If I hear one more person say “begs the question” when what they mean is “raises the question” I might just have a stroke. Also overused, not just incorrectly used.
“epic”
These days, every book, movie, and television show in an epic. Soon we’ll be having epic romantic comedies.
“shit”
People use this word whenever they don’t mean anything, which is, unfortunately, quite often.
As others have mentioned, “amazing”. Joan andMelissa Rivers are big abusers always saying this or that celebrity looks “amazing” or her dress is “amazing” his performance was “amazing”…I hate when the word “fun” is used to discribe clothes or shoes…
Also: networking, powerlunch, powernap,
It still drives me batty when people, usually in business writing, use the word “utilize.” It’s almost never correct.
I’m tired of restaurants that claim to be “fusion.” I don’t want my food fused or radioactive, thanks, and really, having two ethnic flavours isn’t a new idea.
“Metrosexual.” I think its use is declining, and thank Christ. It doesn’t make sense and it’s stupid.
“Emboldened.” Generally trotted out when someone wants to justify a bad foreign policy move. It’s a real word, but it still sounds like something Jeremiah Springfield would have said and you can safely assume most people using it are either (a) liars or (b) morons. 75% of the times you see this word, “encouraged” would have been a better choice.
“Partnership.” I’m having more and more service companies tell me, as their customer, that we have a “partnership.” No, we most certainly do not. We have a supplier-customer relationship. A partnership, in business, is when two parties share in the risks and rewards of a business venture. I am not your partner, I’m your customer, unless you wanna give me a cut of the profits.
“Mission Critical.” I’ve heard this horrible phrase a thousand times in the last year and at least sixty percent of the time it was obvious that the speaker or writer did not have a clue what it meant except that it sounds like it might be synonymous with “important.”
Heh. There’s a parody movie coming out “Epic Movie”, which includes parody scenes of Snakes on a Plane. Since when is SOAP an epic??
:smack: I’m guilty of this one. I try not to say “problem” so it gets replaced with “issue”.
I’m a teacher.
‘Like’ wins easily, followed at a distance by ‘you know’.
Sometimes when talking to pupils, I get them to listen to what they are saying. They are astonished to hear stuff like ( 
see what I did there?):
So I was like going to see John who was like really up for it and like excited and I went like “What’s up with you?” and he was like “I’m like you know really buzzing”.
It’s mildly amusing when they try to (like) stop, because they keep (like) pausing (you know).
Try using the word “concern”.
Banks love this one. It’s a crock.
I was at an all-day meeting yesterday at which the adjective “robust” was used to describe everything from a health plan’s financial status, to a list of physicians (otherwise known as "rendering providers’) to the coffee being served. Must have heard it used two dozen times.
“developing countries” and “developed countries”
Nations with lots of wealth are “rich” or “first world”, while those with little wealth are “poor” or “third world”. A poor country is not necessarily developing. Some poor countries are developing but other are not, and a few are moving backwards. The phrasing disguises an attempt to justify certain policies towards poor countries by implying their situation will necessarily improve without interference.
Cool I once saw a TV advert for Butlin’s Holiday Camp. They had a boy on there say “the swimming pool was really cool”. I would have thought it would have been better if the pool was warm.
“Shut up!” as in, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Oh fuck. My company uses “robust” to describe the shitty ticketing program we wrestle with every day. Fuck them. And fuck the program.
At my last job I used to have to go to a weekly hour-long meeting that was dreadfully boring. To pass the time I would count the number of times the lead speaker would say “essentially”. His record in one hour was 23 instances of the word. It’s just another word for “basically”, which is equally meaningless.