Oooh, baby bump always annoys me too, but now whenever I see it/hear it, I’m going to think “impacted” and then giggle myself into a fit.
The phrase that always boggles my mind is any reference to an actor who “shows some serious acting chops.” I don’t even know what that means. Okay, that’s not true, I know exactly what it means, what I don’t know is why anyone would use those words to convey that meaning when “good acting” takes care of the whole concept. Does anyone ever have any frivolous acting chops? How about other professions? Does a teacher have serious teaching chops? Every time I hear it, I imagine someone acting in a Civil War period movie with big mutton chop whiskers, which is disconcerting when it’s being said about someone like Cate Blanchett.
The young men and women of our armed forces — ugh! It’s an attempt to appear non-misogynistic by being inclusive of women, but it’s condescending and ridiculous instead. For one thing, it just tacks women on as an afterthought at the end with a conjunction. For another, it’s twice as many syllables. Also, it’s beginning to bleed over into historically absurd contexts, like the men and women who gave their lives on Omaha beach. Just say people, dammit. The young people of our armed forces.
I think I have a decent (if only anecdotal and personally embarrassing) case. When I was 10ish (1993) I had a “Sassy Magazine” that listed. “'Mibad?” as the hippest new lingo on the street. For the first part of its early existence in print in girly magazines it was definitely phrased as a question. Sassy Magazine’s explanation for the term was roughly what I offered. I am pretty sure it started out this way and only morphed into “my bad” by masses of people who didn’t really know anything about its origins. It would be an easy mistake to make because even in its original incarnation, you didn’t get that it was a question solely by the tone of voice.
Um… not that I care, or anything.
I would have to at least partially agree with your assessment. Even though I’ve bitched about my own pet peeves in this thread, I’ve never quite been able to be militantly against slang words since I took a linguistics class and learned about all the inherent age, ethnic, and class biases that go into determining what’s “acceptable” speech.
Actually, as someone else already pointed out, it’s “the grease,” not “the most oil.” Wheels get greased all the time. Don’t you ever take your car in for a lube job?
I hate the way some people use the term “female” instead of woman. It’s as if they stop themselves from saying “chick”, but don’t know what to put there instead. They say things like “there’s this female I work with who…” or “men like (something) but females like (something else)”. It makes me think they’re talking about chimps or birds or something.
I’m not a designation within a species, I’m a woman, damn it.
It’s weird crusty old guy talk. I was hanging out with my grandmother’s partner the other day and he kept saying “females,” as if it was physically painful to say “women.” I think he used “dame” once or twice as well.
Also, he referred to Martin Luther King Day as “that shwartz holiday.” I’m always mildly bemused when I hear a new ethnic slur I’d never heard before. Don’t ask me where he got it; he’s Italian, not German or Jewish.
I picked up “female” from my military days. Males and females, that’s what we were, when we weren’t just soldiers.
I heard a woman-soldier make the same complaint as you. Females are for other species, human women are women! Meanwhile, she had no problem with boys, guys, dudes, etc. But women must always be women.
There is no womanly equivalent to “guys” but “women” is too formal sounding sometimes. Can you ladies… er I mean gals… er I mean girls… er I mean women come up with an equivalent to “guys” that doesn’t make you sound so precious and special all the dang time?