Last summer we were laughing because my very articulate and precocious 4 year old nephew was saying “actually” a lot … we couldn’t figure out where he had heard it enough to use it so appropriately.
Then we all started to listen to ourselves, and how often we said it. It’s now a family joke, because we actually say it a lot! It’s quite horrific.
Now my SO and I are hyper-aware of it, and it’s hard not to mock people for saying it, because we definitely mock each other for overusing it to such a ridiculous degree!
A couple of people I know (women seem to use it more often) will quite regularly use it twice in the same sentence! Crazy …
I have a few of these that I used mostly when I was younger. But, they still pop up occasionally.
Bonus!, Sweet
(When something’s good.)
Buzz Kill
(When something’s bad.)
Shady at best.
Sketchy at best.
A person is shady. A situation or place is sketchy. Don’t ask me why. It’s just the way it is.
My new one that my SO is annoyed with is:
It’s one of those things…
I don’t know where I picked it up, but I do say it too often. It usually leads into a sentance, and is OK to use every once in a while. But, not all the time.
Another one I’ve beaten to death is when I’m really amazed by something someone says, I’ll say “Shut the fuck up!” I started it when Beverly Hills Cop was a popular movie, and I’ve not found the courage to give it up.
But I’d like to revive one of my old standards: “Boy, you’ve really got your tit in a ringer, don’t ya?” It’s so concise. No pussy-footin’ around.
hip
groovy
awesome
exellent<–in an excessively poor C. Montgomery Burns impression no good!
sure, sure
right on
I am quite sure there are others, I just can’t recall any offhand. Many of my friends seem to pick up what they refer to as mixie-isms, but none of them are coming to mind. I guess that’s probably because they’re things that seem endearing rather than irritating, so not quite on the things I’ve been meaning to stop saying list. Most of the above are a bit odd considering I’m in my early 20s and well past the “groovy” generation. Come to think of it, only “awesome” really fits into the inner-cringe category, although I do have to admit that, being a native Californian, I do let the occasional, instantly regrettable “dude” slip by.
I’ve lately developed a really bad habit of saying what what? when I don’t quite hear what someone has said to me. I’m really trying to break the habit - and I have no idea where I picked it up to start with.
“man” - I say this so much that my husband picked up the habit. “Hey, man,” “That’s really cool, man,” “Look, man,” “No way, man,” “maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan…” when things are going wrong, etc., etc.
For some reason, “horrid” has become another verbal tic. It makes me sound like a prissy schoolmarm, which is weird combined with my incessant swearing - “maaaaan, that’s fucken horrid!”
I, at one point, began saying “eh?” as a joke (so I have a very strange sense of humor…) and it became a habit. Living in and being from the south, and probably sounding like it…I get strange looks. I also picked up “bloody”. That’s worse. The phrase I have been known to let slip is “dadgum bloody”–“Gimme the dadgum, bloody carrot.”
Hm.
Maybe that’s why I have no friends.
At least I got through the phase of saying “don’t you know?” in that stereotypical Minnesota accent. I went from that to “eh?” Probably for the better.
When someone thanks me, I say “No problem.” It’s awful! I want to say, “You’re welcome” or “I’m glad to help” or something gracious. Instead I say “No problem.” Gah.
I say dude way too often. When I’m driving:
“Dude, what the hell are you doing? Dude. Duuuuude.” Gah!
When something’s neat, it’s neato burrito. What the hell is that? Where did I get that and can I give it back?
I have the strangest habit when I see something that’s tiny and cute. My voice gets all high and I say something like, “Looook, look at the little kitty! Beep beep!”
This is probably the sign of a mental illness I’d rather not know about. Beep beep!
“Indeed.” I picked it up as a result of the Kaientai WWF/WWE gimmick, and it’s creeped away from being funny and toward being a general way of acceding to things.
It’s not exactly a word or a phrase, but I’ve tried to stop ending phrases in mid-sentence. Something like:
" - I wish I would stop saying incomplete sentences, but…"
You get the ideia.
I picked up “dude,” “rad,” and “awesome” from the locals, and I’m not happy about it. Especially since I haven’t abandoned all my southern-isms, so I find myself saying stuff like, “Dude, y’all!”
I started saying “irregardless” to make fun of people who say that, and now I can’t stop. Linguistic karma.
I’m a teacher. Every day in class, I’m giving students stern looks for cursing (and scaring the Spanish speakers who haven’t figured out that I have a list of Spanish curse words). Therefore, I’m really not supposed to curse in front of the kids.
Except, I have this habit of saying “bugger!”. Now, they have no idea what it means, but should a student of mine ever grab a clue, I’ll never hear the end of it.
