This is not so much about clichés as about words, especially current, shop-worn ones, single and in the form of phrases.
So let’s get down to it! List the phonetic irritants scrapping at your eyes and ears these days.
Here are two to start things off:
Hot!
Hip!
:mad:
There used to be a local TV news reporter here by the name of Gay Yee. The two Y’s together still cause me no end of trouble. Luckily, this is a phonetic phenomenon that’s not too common, but it bothers me anyway.
Sweeeeeet! Sounds like a pig squealing.
Psst… Brian, m’love, you want just plain old ‘words’. Phonetics are the sounds that go into words. It’d be like saying, “I hate the way that stupid letter ‘e’ sounds!” 
This isn’t my own, but a my friend’s. As we’re just beginning a new semester, we had to buy a lot of textbooks, or texts. He just hates the word “texts.” I can understand his pain: the word, though only one-syllable, has a sort of “ts” sound twice in a row, making it a slow word to pronounce.
That’s one of only maybe a half a dozen slang words I use and I don’t see myself stopping any time soon.
I blame Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.
isthmus used to drive me crazy when we first moved to Madison*. Now I say it all the time without a second thought, but it’s quite difficult to pronounce if you’re not used to it.
I also hate the saying _________ is the new _________ and the words merge, gong and dork. More for how they sound than what they mean.
Technically, it’s a “ksts” but good point - “ghosts” used to give me trouble as a kid. 
IMO difficult consonant clusters are cool sounding.
There’s a rhyme with ghosts and posts that’s supposed to help stuttering. It’s in It, the book. Anyone know what I’m talking about?
He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts
is the one I’m aware of, but I’m not a stutterer and only heard it the novel It by Stephen King.
I don’t know where it comes from, but my dad used to recite that one. I got the impression it was used to promote proper enunciation. He learned it in grade school, way back when recitation was still a valued skill.
My dad was ooold.
You’re exactly right. I was bleary-eyed and half asleep (like many others here, I suspect) when I wrote it.
I’m talking about buzzwords or any phrase that makes you want to scream when you hear or read it/them. I was just trying to be clever in my title. :smack:
Funny. I was taught it as a warm-up exercise when getting ready to go onstage in a show.
I have a thing about the pronunciation of words with two "t"s in the middle.
Like button, kitten, mitten, mutton, etc, etc.
For some reason it irritates me to hear people pronounce both Ts. It’s like they’re going out of their way to sound unnatural. Like “BUT-ton” I don’t know how to spell the difference I’m talking about. Does anyone know what I mean? I can’t be the only one.
I hate when people say those words without the t’s. Ki’en. Bu’on. Drives me wacky.
No, no; I DO pronounce the ‘T’. But only ONE of them
I pronounce both. I’ve been listening to myself. I have no idea why. It doesn’t seem useful.