Drama Queen is the nickname I gave my hot-tempered (male) coworker. I also have begun using it to describe any hot-tempered man. I’ve also begun using “flaming up” to describe an episode of violent temper. If anything, it amuses me.
I was going to say ‘solutions’ but others have beaten me to it. “Generating holistic solutions”. What’s all that about?
“think outside the box” and “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” are two we have at work that make me want to go postal.
I hear you on this one. To anyone that has ever taken a philosophy course, this should inexcusable.
Personally, if I hear “Get 'er done!” one more time, I am going to scream.
Pardon, what I meant to say was,
this should BE inexcusable.
Which version? The “gnarly” as in supercool,“I just took a gnarly mogul” version?
Or gnarly as in “that’s disgusting”?
Umm, I agree. I think that last one was correct. (not positive, but pretty sure). It wouldn’t sound right to say “I just wanted to establish ME…”.
Transparent and transparency.
I already agreed that it was used correctly. But this is about overused words, and I like to think that three “myself” quotes in one article demonstrated my point that athletes are overusing the word.
Oh, right, I remember another overused word: “surreal,” used as a synonym for “weird.” Never seems connected to anything surreal at all.
Why is it whenever some lone sailor gets into trouble it’s always in a “shark infested sea” ?
“Official”
As in, on message boards, “the official [topic] thread!” or something like that. Really? Who made it official? People just want to make themselves sound more important.
Also used in a generic sense in advertising. Like… “Assplosion Tacos, the official food of fun!”
Really? Did the Committee Of Fun sign give you an officialality certificate?
I third, or fourth, literally. The worst thing is that it’s usually used in the exact opposite of its meaning - people use it to emphasize a figurative phrase. “When he heard the alarm, he literally flew out the door” - really? Sprouted wings and took off? It’s not just wrong, but it’s the exact opposite of what the correct usage would be.
I’ve noticed that in interviews and on TV shows, the phrase “I mean” is being used way too often and way too wrong! If I say something and you look perplexed, so I restate in beginning with “I mean…” I believe that’s proper usage.
But when I ask you how your vacation was, and the first thing out of your mouth is “I mean, it was the best ever!” - well, what’s wrong with this picture? It’s one of those annoying things that you notice everywhere once you notice it. Do you know what I mean??
One of my sisters does it all the time. I just wanna smack her.
And regarding “basically” - I was in a training class taught by a guy who loved this crutch. In one 4-hour period, he used it 157 time. Yes, I kept count, starting on the last day of class. The little tickmarks kept me from plunging my pen into his larynx.
What’s the common, but incorrect, usage of this word? As far as I know, and dictionary.com agrees, it simply means “to put to use” - I’m not sure how anyone can use this incorrectly.
I hate the word “ginormous.”
Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.
It’s a hideous amalgam of two perfectly pleasant and functional words, gigantic and enormous (this etymology is so idiotically obvious that I am almost ashamed to write it). It might be cute if said by a three-year-old kid. Otherwise, people who use it give every impression of being perversely proud of their own illiteracy. I blame Bush.
That reminds me of how often you see the word “embattled” in political coverage. I was warned about this in journalism school years ago, and it seems to be getting worse.
My God, how could I forget this one? One that hundreds of Dopers have misused? Maybe the most misused word in the history of the Internet:
Sentient.
“Sentient” does not mean “intelligent.” It does not mean having a higher level of self-awareness, or being able to use tools. The way it is used in Star Trek, and the way it is used 99.99% of the time it has ever been used on the SDMB, is wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Sentient” means “Having senses.” Pretty much all animals visible to the naked eye, and many that are not, are sentient. If it can see, hear, feel, taste or smell, it’s sentient.
“Utilize” has, or always used to have, a slightly different meaning; it meant to put a thing to a particular, practical use, especially in a context it would not normally be used. For instance, if you couldn’t find a screwdriver you could utilize a butter knife to turn a screw. It means, literally, “to give utility to something.”
In any other sense that it’s indistinguishable from “use,” why would you write “utilize”? It’s horribly overused.
The word “Word!” Especially from those that never seem to have an original thought… Those same people tend to use the word “gnarly” too… Sounds like a damn surfboard convention…
Like, Ya know?
Eclipse <out>
Green is so not your colour.
Bollocks
**Muscular ** - among politicians and pundits. Every freaking law or provision is “muscular.” I’m sure Freud would have had fun with it, but it’s just nails on a chalkboard to my ears.
**emo ** - among our youth. At one point it meant self-indulgent gloominess, but now it just seems to mean anything not happy happy joy joy. I’ve heard it applied to Apocalypse Now and an Inconvenient Truth. It needs to go.
It’s not so much filler, as a junk qualifier. Basically, essentially, and even “like” are just ways of acknowledgeing that what follows is not 100% accurate, it’s an approximation. I prefer their insertion, because it gives me an idea of how to evaluate the information.