Grow used as a verb in a non-agricultural context-as in “We’re going to grow the economy”
Can’t stand people growing anything except plants and vegetables.
“Ax” instead of “Ask”…
“Yabut”- My kids use this term all the time, and it drives me out of my mind! They are now the “Yabut kids”.
“Are you sure about that, dear?” (from my husband, as if my opinion is worthless)
People I don’t know, or barely know, calling me “Honey, dear, sweetheart, love, babe” and any other cutsey names they think up because they can’t remember my name.
“Livid”- when people use it to describe an emotion… “I was absolutely livid”. Don’t they realize this means that they were absolutely black and blue?
“In a minute, Mom”. This gets a 3-second count before I detonate.
When any supervisor tells me, “come on!” or “let’s go!” or “come on, pick it up!” That shit just drives me insane, and I work even slower just to piss them off.
Also, I hate any word with “dick” in it – perpendicular, contradictory, rediculous, addicted, etc.
And I don’t like the word participle. It just has a funny sound to it.
I don’t like it that dry skin is referred to as “scale” by dermatology types. Can’t somebody have dead skin stuck to them without turning into a reptile?
I know a lot of people who hate “proactive”. Is this just because it’s overused (a fair judgement)? I hope it’s not because they think it means the same as “active” (I know one person who feels this way) because it doesn’t. Active is a superset containing proactive and reactive. Passive is the opposite. That is my neologism usage sermon.
“Thread Locked”
Does anyone else feel like reaching for a crowbar when you hear yet again someone talk about “thinking outside of the box”?
Biotop–
I agree. That has got to be the worst of the current business catch phrases out there, eclipsing even “grow your business” and “pro-active.” We went through an ERP installation a year ago at work and every vendor rep that came in used that phrase.
A couple more words that always make me cringe:
Basically – Basically this word is basically filler.
Proceeded – As in “Then we proceeded to go to a movie.” Then I proceeded to stop listening
How could you all forget the Media’s Favourite:
NEARMISS. What is this bullshit? They mention this when two airplanes come in close contact with each other. A nearmiss means they hit each other. They go on the air nationally and tell every one their dead when there not. Could this be defemation of character?
Not a word but phrase:
I get this every time I enter the break room at work. There is atleast 1 or 2 guys at every job that say’s, “there he is.” If you have nothing to say, keep your mouth shut, please don’t say that.
I don’t mind the words themselves, but hate hearing them used negatively, as in “Fuck you” or “My job sucks.”
I had an entire thread devoted to this misuse of nice dirty words.
To the best of my knowledge, fucking and sucking are pleasurable events.
Why degrade ourselves by using lovemaking as an insult?
I hate VIRTUALLY, as in “It’s virtually the same thing.”
It means “not really” to me, yet people use it to mean “really”.
And “pantie-waist”. What kind of insult is this supposed to be? “Pantie-waste” however, would be mighty serious insult.
“Not even if you were the last guy on earth!”
Err…umm…that actually hasn’t been said to me. I’m just speaking…err…hypothetically.
“You know what I mean?” when repeated constantly.
“Why don’t we agree to disagree?” That one already gets to me when used – sorry I mean utilized once.
Also the overuse/abuse of the word “cool.”
“Leverage”, “proactive”, “outside the box” or any other trite, overused managerial phrase or buzzword has the potential to be physically hazardous if used in my presence.
“Irregardless” makes me want to throw a Webster’s at the speaker. If the speaker uses “impacts” to mean “affects”, a demonstration of the proper use of “impact” is in order.
Repetitive use of any particular word (or a small subset of words) by a single speaker gets to me, too. One of the advantages of the English language is its potential for conveying subtle connotations through careful selection of synonyms. One former coworker so thoroughly failed to grasp this idea that I finally told him to go away, read extensively, and call me when he had a vocabulary. I still cringe when I hear the word “basically”. It was his favorite.
Miss, as in Can i help you miss? It is improper. I am a ma’am and have been since at least 12 years of age.
I hate it when people say vagina when they mean vulva. It just propigates the mistaken notion that the only interesting bit between a woman’s legs is a hole to stick a penis in. I have heard sexually active adults insist that women have no external genitalia.
Irregardless.
“need” where you should use “want”. You NEED air, water, shleter. A new car is a WANT.
People who swallow a dictionary and try using all the words, and USE THEM WRONG!!! Words like “notorious” have a negative connotation, it does NOT mean famous.
But the worst sound of all is my alarm clock at 6 AM.
Not a single word, but a phrase:
Been there, done that.
SO dismissive. “I have experienced what you are describing, and do not care to hear about it.”
“No problem”–if your drug addiction is ‘no problem’, then how come you are letting it proliferate until it takes over your life!!
“It’s not you; it’s me”–I’m no gardener–stop giving me bull fertilizer. You are trying to be nice, and we both know it’s my fault that we are breaking up. But you won’t tell me how it is my fault, and I’ll never figure it out.
“Not ever, honey”–enough said.
I hate the sound of vagina. It just makes me cringe. I prefer some of the slang terms better, as they sound better when pronounced.
“Howdy.” It pisses me off to no end.
“Hi there.” I can just see some nasty old guy in a bar leering at me when I hear that phrase.
The manager/owner of the company I used to work for would always ask me if I wanted to do something for him. In response to this, I would always say no.
HIM: Do you want to make 45 copies of this and mail them to these addresses?
ME: No. Actually, I want to be at home drinking slow comfortable screws and playing on the internet.
HIM: rolling eyes Will you please make 45 copies of this and mail them to these addresses?
ME: Sure. That’s what you pay me to do, right?
No matter how many times times this happened, he would still always ask me if I wanted to first. Also, there’s “straight up”, “that is sooo dope”, and “as if”.