Phrases/terms that aggravate the hell out of you

“Active shooter” - as opposed to what, a passive shooter or an inactive shooter, neither of which is shooting? Just ‘shooter’

As opposed to a hostage taker making demands.

Before the age of mass murder, folks shot somebody and fled, or shot somebody and shot themselves. By the time anyone called the cops, much less they arrived on scene, the action was long over. It was “a shooting e.g. 20 minutes ago”, not “somebody shooting now”.

If we read “active” as “ongoing” it makes more sense. An “active shooter” is a shooter who is actively still shooting at stuff/people now. He’s not done yet. And as Uvalde demonstrates, the difference between “he’s done” and “he’s not done yet.” can be very, very significant.

I agree it’s not the best term, but we do now need a term for “ongoing in-progress criminal assault on the public by firearm(s) that’s (probably) not going to end until the cops force an end to it.” But I think you’ll agree that calling it an OIPCAOTPBFTPNGTEUTCFAEOT is not as catchy. :wink:

Which preposition you use there is largely governed by how old you are (at least in the US). Born after about 2000, you’re more likely to say on accident. Born before about 1980, you’re more likely to say by accident. Born between 1980 and 2000, you’re likely to use both.

Regional variations affect this, of course.

Could be. I’ve heard it in phrases like The package came on yesterday and (less often) The package is coming on tomorrow in the South, primarily Texas and Louisiana.

These examples are enough to make me wish we had Grammar Police like the French (and French Canadians).

Yeah, I’d be happier if I could see language as an evolving, amorphous blob… but that’ll take a while, so not on tomorrow, unless it’s on accident.

“We must learn to live with COVID.” And all variants.

All too often, blovated by people who use it to mean “I’m not doing anything further. Too bad if it brings harm you or your loved ones.”

A thousand times NO…“learning to live” with ANY threat means changing actions in response to it. That’s the “learning” part.

Yup. Said another way, “learning to live with COVID” really means “You need to put up with all the consequences of COVID. I will simply pretend it doesn’t exist and, statistically speaking, will probably be OK despite my fantasy POV. And If I’m unlucky, I’ll deny it was COVID to my dying ventilator-assisted breath.”

Reality has an anti-nutbag bias.

“Pain is just weakness leaving the body.” It could also be cancer.

I don’t think that’s what it means these days (i.e. after about February 2022 or so).

I’d understand “leaning to live with COVID” to mean a combination of several things:

  1. COVID isn’t going anywhere. It’s with us for our lifetimes, and probably the rest of human time.

  2. It’s more or less moved from pandemic to endemic, meaning that the transmission rates and consequences really ARE on par with the flu, if you’re vaccinated and boosted. If not, well fuck you.

  3. At this point, most mitigation measures are overkill, unless you’re immunocompromised or you’re trying to avoid getting it prior to a big trip or something, for timing reasons.

  4. Even if it was more serious, the overwhelming use of home testing kits means that unless hospitalizations and deaths rise, it’s awfully hard for the public health authorities or general public to have much of an idea of how serious any surge may actually be.

So it’s a shorthand for “get on with your life, things are as back to normal as they’re ever going to get.

It’s a matter of mental eye-rolling rather than hellish aggravation, but the phrases “educated palate” and “refined palate” qualify.

My mother occasionally resorted to these expressions as a rebuke to her low-standards children who delighted in eating at the sort of “greasy spoon” restaurants that she abhorred.

True, palatal taste buds do exist along with other extra-lingual taste buds. But you hardly ever hear about someone who supposedly has a refined laryngeal pharynx or educated upper esophagus.

Or the corollary:

I believe sewage testing can produce useful data about the amount of virus being shat about in a given place and time.

That word. I hate it. And I see no need for it either. People use it in situations when there’s no need to refer to human toilet activities. I use “shit,” but only as a generic exclamation of frustration; never as a synonym or metaphor for actual excretion. If you’re trying to describe something to me, please don’t make analogies to human excretion. And the past tense form for whatever reason bothers me more than the present tense. It bothers me way more than sexual slang like “fuck,” which I’m totally fine with. Fucking is nice and fun, and I have no problem being reminded that people fuck, and no problem having that imagery brought to mind. Pooping is gross. I don’t even want to be obliquely reminded in conversation of other people pooping.

I will forever boldly stand in defiance with “shat”, and its munificence and bounty of its very own state of being.

excretions happen

This comment reminded me of the old joke “God must be a civil engineer, because who else would put a recreational area right next to an open sewage drain.” :slightly_smiling_face:

Perfect

“This isn’t your father’s…”.

  1. My father (and grandfather for that matter) were pretty smart people. I don’t appreciate hearing that I should reject something just because they had it.
  2. I WISH I could buy some of the things that were available in those times. Such as a home appliance with a planned lifespan beyond 15 years - and in the event of a breakdown the average handyperson could usually find the faulty part with a basic set of tools and a continuity tester.

“Meme.” I just spent a a year working with kids (love ‘em, but….)who communicated by choice almost exclusively in memes. but I know they’re a fact of online life and I never cared before-now I just hate the word. Just an empty word.