Rhetorical pet peeves

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We humans use lots of colorful and metaphorical language to express ourselves and to frame debate. This is all fine and dandy, but a few rhetorical devices just drive me crazy because they actually weaken the use of words or phrases when they are used to mean what they are actually supposed to mean.

Take the term “common sense”. Really this phrase should mean that which is innate, or doesn’t specifically have to be learned or acquired. In common usage however “common sense” refers to the world as the user sees it. This phrase is one of the most overused in political rhetoric as an insult to those who don’t hold a certain opinion; they lack “common sense”. This usage is nearly opposite of the intended meaning.

And then there is the famous misuse of the word “literally”, which is especially egregious because it is now most commonly used to mean the exact opposite its definition. Now whenever I want to emphasize the literal truth or something I find that I have to use a lot of extra words, because now it is simply a filler word used for emphasis in all manner of figurative sentences.

I’m not a stickler for vocabulary or grammar; in fact I know I misuse words and such all the time. This is normal for casual use of almost any language, but my problem is when the blatant misuse of terminology actually makes it harder to communicate without the use of perfectly good words that have now taken on an entirely new (and often opposite) meaning.

Does anyone have any other rhetorical pet peeves?

2

Basically.

3

I’m not sure if this qualifies, but many people seem to not understand that the actual thing in a common phrase isn’t itself a joke.
We’ll be watching a parade when a horse drops some excrement, so they’ll get a stupid big grin and loudly proclaim “That’s what you call a real pile of horse shit!” … and wait for me to laugh or groan like they invented a clever pun.

4

I hate the term ‘common sense’. Given a choice I would much rather have uncommon sense.

When I was a teen my stupid stepmother kept accusing me of not having common sense. I asked her for a definition. Instead she gave me two examples: “Sense enough to come in out of the rain”, and “Sense enough to get out of a burning building”.

I asked her, “What if the building’s on fire AND it’s raining?”

5

There was a movie a few years ago called Bride and Prejudice. Same basic plot as Pride and Prejudice, except it’s a Bollywood musical. The trailer had one of the Voiceover Guys crowing, “It’s Bollywood meets Hollywood!” And I just wanted to chew glass.

6

If it counts, referring to a person’s inclination to anger as a “temper”, when “temper” really (or originally) meant the ability to avoid getting angry in this context. Now nearly the only reference to “temper” that is correct is the phrase “to lose one’s temper”.