# Phrases I hate. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 24, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402 "2007-05-24T20:33:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/21 "2007-05-24T21:45:42Z")
I’ve harped on this before, but: “on the ground” and especially “the reality on the ground.” It seems like every reporter is now obligated to use this phrase at least six times per story, no matter what the story is about. (If the story is about Iraq, you have to use it at least once per sentence.) ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/22 "2007-05-24T21:48:07Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] “‘Assume’ makes an ass of you and me.” [/QUOTE] I like the Flash Gordon version: **‘Assuming’ makes an ass of u and Ming.** ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/23 "2007-05-24T21:48:13Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] You could make a nice drinking game by taking a swig every time someone on The Apprentice uses one of these phrases. Everyone would be blotto by the end of the show. [/QUOTE] ‘I have a lot to offer’ ‘If you will let me show what I can do / am capable of’ ‘I can prove to you’ ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/24 "2007-05-24T21:49:34Z")
I’m already tired of “That’s how I roll.” ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Ad\_Here](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b2d939/32.png) [@Your\_Ad\_Here](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Ad_Here)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/25 "2007-05-24T21:51:14Z")
[QUOTE=Big\_Norse] “Take aways” as in “What were the take aways from that meeting.” [/QUOTE] I’ve never heard that phrase. Do you mean leftover Danish? We’re usually told to take the leftover Danish away and back to our departments. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/26 "2007-05-24T21:53:33Z")
[QUOTE=Big\_Norse] “Take aways” as in “What were the take aways from that meeting.” [/QUOTE] I’d love to encounter that, expecting a big bag full of Chicken Jalfrezi. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/27 "2007-05-24T21:57:10Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] “There’s a piece of work around…” is one I encounter frequently. This means “Someone needs to do this work, but it ain’t going to be me that does it, and I’m using the passive voice to absolve myself of responsibility.” It irritates me a great deal. [/QUOTE] There’s no use of the passive voice in the phrase “There’s a piece of work around.” I know, on semantic grounds, it seems like that’s a very “passive” thing to say or way of speaking, but that’s not what “the passive voice” is; it’s a specific syntactic construction. It’s a common mistake to conflate syntactic terminology with semantic concepts, but the two just aren’t that tightly coupled. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/28 "2007-05-24T22:04:52Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Rieux] “At this point in time…” [/QUOTE] Could someone please tell me what my co-worker means when we’re discussing something and he wants to disagree with something I’ve said, he starts off, “At that same point in time though, . . .” I don’t really know what it means but I know I don’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/29 "2007-05-24T22:06:52Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] Could someone please tell me what my co-worker means when we’re discussing something and he wants to disagree with something I’ve said, he starts off, “At that same point in time though, . . .” I don’t really know what it means but I know I don’t like it. [/QUOTE] I think he probably means “however” or “nevertheless” or “on the other hand”. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/30 "2007-05-24T22:07:52Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] I think he probably means “however” or “nevertheless” or “on the other hand”. [/QUOTE] Then shouldn’t it be “At the same time, . . .”? I meant to say I know what he’s \*trying \* to say, I just don’t know what that particular phrase parses out to be. Sorry, imprecision is apparently _everybody’s_ hobgoblin. And I don’t know how I can, or if I should, correct him. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/31 "2007-05-24T22:14:02Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] Then shouldn’t it be “At the same time, . . .”? I meant to say I know what he’s \*trying \* to say, I just don’t know what that particular phrase parses out to be. [/QUOTE] It sounds as if he has grafted a clichéd catchphrase, “at that point in time,” onto “at the same time.” Speaking of “point in time,” I can’t remember having heard “point in time” until the Watergate hearings. Aha! Another thing to blame on Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/32 "2007-05-24T22:17:12Z")
[QUOTE=Your Ad Here] I’ve never heard that phrase. Do you mean leftover Danish? We’re usually told to take the leftover Danish away and back to our departments. [/QUOTE] > [@GorillaMan](#): > > I’d love to encounter that, expecting a big bag full of Chicken Jalfrezi. I wish! Nope, it’s short hand (but not really short) for “So what did we all learn here today?” And here’s a fun one: MECE (pronounced mee-see) it’s a gem from the _McKinsey Way_ and _The McKinsey Mind_ folks meaning “mutually exclusive collectively exhaustive” which is how you should break down problems in the perfect work environment (or that’s what I learned from a daylong seminar we were all forced to sit through). For weeks after, the brain trust here kept asking each other if they were approaching the problem MECE - luckily it seems to have died off. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/33 "2007-05-24T22:19:42Z")
Now you’ve made me think, **Indistinguishable**. The sentiment is clearly along the lines of “Questions have been raised…” beloved of British reporters, where the raiser of the questions is not explicit due to the grammatical construct (since usually it’s the reporter and his/her friends). How would I make “There is a piece of work around…” passive? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/34 "2007-05-24T22:21:45Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] “Think outside the box” has outlived its usefulness. Anyone who uses the “Think outside the box” cliché is obviously stuck inside the box. [/QUOTE] [“Apple Employee Fired For Thinking Different”](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29587):“It’s okay to think outside the box,” said Avie Tevanian, Apple senior vice-president of software engineering. “In fact, we very much encourage that sort of thing here at Apple. But in Mr. Barlow’s case, he went just a bit too far.” Anybody who is going to “hit that” needs to have a good hard smack along a tender spot. “I gotta get me some of dat,” and “Get 'er done,” and variations thereof are more that need to be set out to pasture. In fact, the whole lexicon of gettospeak and white trash talk as promulgated by college-educated fraternity boys needs to be put paid. We don’t all have to speak the Queen’s English, but do at least make an effort to sound like a marginally educated human being. In the corporate world, I could do without the entire range of euphamisms that mean “communicate with”, “use”, “consider”, “fire”, “make a change to hide our utter incompetence”, and “complete failure”. If I read another e-mail regarding how “we are reimaging our core competencies and realigning organizational matrices to ensure delivery of world-class solutions to enhance customer sastisfaction,” I’m going to show up to work naked and refuse to eat any more chocolate-covered Egyptian cotton. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@Mike\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Fun)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/35 "2007-05-24T22:26:45Z")
I hate the expression “Do what?” or “Do what now?” when someone didn’t hear what you said. It’s a Southern thing and it makes the speaker sound fantastically ignorant. I feel like answering “I didn’t tell you to _do_ anything, but since you’re soliciting orders, learn to breathe through your nose, pay attention, and stop saying “do what?” since it makes you sound like a moron.” ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/36 "2007-05-24T22:27:53Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] [“Apple Employee Fired For Thinking Different”](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29587):“It’s okay to think outside the box,” said Avie Tevanian, Apple senior vice-president of software engineering. “In fact, we very much encourage that sort of thing here at Apple. But in Mr. Barlow’s case, he went just a bit too far.” [/QUOTE] Maybe he shoulda just pushed the envelope. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/37 "2007-05-24T22:44:44Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Now you’ve made me think, **Indistinguishable**. The sentiment is clearly along the lines of “Questions have been raised…” beloved of British reporters, where the raiser of the questions is not explicit due to the grammatical construct (since usually it’s the reporter and his/her friends). How would I make “There is a piece of work around…” passive? [/QUOTE] This is a peculiarly unfortunate example for trying to turn into the passive voice, because it uses the special “There [be]…” existential construction. Specifically, a plain-vanilla active voice sentence would be in a form like “The agent [action] the patient”, where the agent is the grammatical subject and the (optional) patient is the grammatical object, with a corresponding passive voice version of “The patient [be] [action expressed with the past participle] by the agent”, where the patient is now the grammatical subject and the part specifying the agent can be optionally elided. For example, “John eats dinner” or “John eats” would be active, with a corresponding passive of “Dinner is eaten by John”, or, taking advantage of the optional elision of the agent, “Dinner is eaten”. Similarly, “X has raised questions” would be active, while “Questions have been raised by X” and “Questions have been raised” would be passive. But with “There is a piece of work around”, there isn’t really an agent or patient or action of that sort; even less special things like “John looks sad” can’t really be put into the passive voice (attempts like \*“Sad is looked by John” are deeply misguided), since their main verbs serve as copulas rather than as actions in the relevant sense. So, I don’t think there’s any thing which could be straightforwardly called the passive voice analogue of “There is a piece of work around”. (Still, if I wanted to put forward a deeply misguided attempt… How about \*“A piece of work is been around by there”? 🙂 ). ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/38 "2007-05-24T23:40:49Z")
“I’m like” “I was like” ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/39 "2007-05-24T23:53:55Z")
[QUOTE=Mike Fun] I hate the expression “Do what?” or “Do what now?” when someone didn’t hear what you said. It’s a Southern thing and it makes the speaker sound fantastically ignorant. I feel like answering “I didn’t tell you to _do_ anything, but since you’re soliciting orders, learn to breathe through your nose, pay attention, and stop saying “do what?” since it makes you sound like a moron.” [/QUOTE] I could not agree more! I dated a guy that used to say this constantly and it got to the point where I would actually yell at him “what the fuck are you talking about? who asked you to do anything?” Mine is the word “random”. Random is not a synonym for odd, or undesirable. As far as I know a person can not be random. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402/40 "2007-05-24T23:58:57Z")
A local TV news traffic reporter up here has taken to describing local roads as being “in shutdown mode”. “An overturned tanker truck has put I-95 in shutdown mode…” Makes me want to put his lip in fat mode. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-i-hate/405402.md?page=3)