What annoying/pretentious terms and figures of speech should be abolished?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I’d like to second (fourth?) the “literally” nomination. Normally I do not correct others’ grammar, but I am going to start making exceptions for that one. Big threat, I know.

Also, “gift” or “gifted” as a verb. Why? In the name of all that is holy, why? What’s wrong with “to give”? We give, we gave, we have given … in all tenses, it conjugates easily. So WHY does a useful and accurate word need to be replaced with a noun? (Admittedly, this idiotic verbal crime is committed mainly by accountants and lawyers, but still–it must stop.)

62

If you you happen to be a woman over forty, it’s probably best that we never meet, as I can’t turn off the “ma’am” habit my family drilled into me.

Here’s another vote for “literally” and “process” needlessly tacked onto any word that works just fine on its own.

I have a visceral hatred of “like” and “you know” used as fillers. I once had to prepare about 20 transcribed interviews for linguistic analysis, and every single bloody “like, you know, we, like, went to like, McDonald’s and got, you know, like, fries” had to be coded so they would be recognized as “nonfluencies” rather than verbs and pronouns.

63

“Now we’re cookin’ with gas!”

What kind of slack-jawed, slobber-chinned, yokel-speak is that?

“Hey Ma! We don’t have to whack down no more trees and bang the rocks together no more! We’re cooking with gas!”

64

I have to say any noun that suddenly becomes a verb (esp. in workplace vernacular) grates on me. Office, is not a verb.

Also, saying “know what I mean?” after every sentence that comes out of one’s mouth and then continuing on as if it was rhetorical. Grrrr.

65

I can’t stand the use of “goodness” as in “The new Xbox game provided hours of gaming goodness.” Hate that. Other than that, any use of “clearly”, “obviously” , No offense, but", “To be honest…”, “literally” when not literal. Corporate buzzwords including the word buzzword drives me nuts.

66

There’s a guy I work with who begins every sentence with the word ‘actually’.

“Good morning! How are you today?”
“Actually, I’m good.”

He seems to want me to be surprised about everything he says.

How annoying.

67

Count me in as someone who hates when people verb nouns. In SDMB context, and just to use one that no one’s said yet, I am getting quite sick of seeing “Pitting so-and-so” or “Pitting such-and-such” in Pit thread titles. Although I admit that’s not as high on the Irritate-o-Tron as “In which…”

Also, it drives me up a wall when people say “I call bullshit.” I can’t explain why it bothers me so much, it just seems like some lame SD slang (I’ve never heard it outside of here) that people use to sound cool.

68

Count me in too. I especially hate seeing the word “parent” used as a verb. Makes me grind my teeth. Also the phrase “I could care less.”

I also agree with the others about “literally” and “extreme”. I don’t agree about “ma’am” though, i think it’s a fine word. I’ll even say “madam” occasionally.

69

“One month anniversary”

There’s no such thing!

70

Since when and how is it degrading? There are plenty of places in the United States were women are still referred to as ma’am.

Marc

71

This doesn’t come up a whole lot outside of textbooks but it always irritated me when the author wrote; “…it is intuitive to the student that…”, if it was intuitive you wouldn’t need to point it out, now would you.

72

this, that, and the other,
thus-and-such,
…and all,
…and everything,
…and stuff,
awesome,
totally,
axe a ?,
etcetera, etcetera (isn’t one enough?),
Dude!

Skwerl-- “I call bullshit” is Liar’s Dice for “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

73

Also:
“I know it’s none of my business, but…”

74

You are right.

As for my opinion, I hate ALL corporate waffle. I guess I’m just not a customer-focused team-player, or an enthusiastic professional who aims to meet and exceed the expectations of both internal and external customers on an ongoing basis, with a view to growing the business and embracing change.

75

Posted by Skwerl :

Is that a whoosh? Aren’t you using the noun verb as a verb in that sentence?

76

Ludovic- Redouble wouldn’t bother me if it actually meant “to double again”. It doesn’t. It simply means:

So what’s with the re? Why not just say “double”?

Ponder Stibbons- Individual French-based words don’t bother me. It’s French phrases such as the one used in the OP as an example that bother me. I have no frickin’ idea what “je ne sais quoi” means, and in most cases I don’t have time to try looking it up or translating it. Such sudden aberrations from English interrupt the flow of my reading.

77

And I go, like…and then he goes, like…so I go, like…ad naseum. What is wrong with “I said.”

“In excess of…” No. Use “over” or “more than”

78

Perhaps by accident, you have stumbled upon the precise origin of that phrase. By the end of the 1940’s it was still considered high-tech, cutting edge and on the forefront of progress to be cooking your food with a gas-range.

from this site:

and from here:

79

Yep.

80

“I’m not a racist but…”
Followed by a bigoted rant.

“Leverage” as in “Let’s leverage our synergy through this focus group,and see if we gain traction for a paradigm shift”

“I’m minded to…”
A fancy-pants way of saying “I feel like…” used by British politicos

Got to disagree on the “je ne sais quoi” thing - it’s such a common phrase in English, like cul-de-sac, al fresco etc (in fact “Etcetera”) - Ad naseum.
It’s not like you need to go on a course to learn how to use them.