To me, it's a summation of what has gone before and what really matters. Sort of a retrospective.

For example, Denzel Washington writes:

At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.

Interestingly, though, I rarely use it!!

"WE are Pregnant"

So many others, but that's a start

"SHE is pregnant." Right you are.

I think it is demeaning as hell.

I expressed my disgust with that term here years ago and was berated for it!

... followed by some disrespectful speech.

Arrrghhhh. I hear it a dozen times a day.

“and whatnot”

Yes, I still hear people say it.

Just no.

"Anymore" not used in the negative stands out to me in a way that makes me cringe. I understand that it is becoming more common--originating in certain areas within Midland America, but that doesn't make it correct.

I'm guilty of that and did not even know it.

On my taxes. God if that takes off, our language is as dead as our democracy.

A Republican?

Instead of a mistake or lie. I am afraid that will get picked up.

His 'stable genius' showing through again. Whoops...must have picked that one up already myself.
I would bet on 'misnomer' as well.
Thanks for answering my question.

Even reading it made me cringe. Sorry.

I heard that a lot when I lived there, a;so..." I'm dont it. " instead of I've finished.

My cringeworthy phrase is... "In the final analysis"... it portends a long droning explanation.

Not my monkeys.

I have a coworker who uses this phrase so often that I picture him in clown makeup whenever I see him.

Cringe!

Esp. after Sandra Bullock praised her husband Jesse saying "He's got my back" and shortly after he was revealed to be a total cheating backstabber.

And she's full of shit.

To me it's meaningless, esp. because the people who say that to others are rarely in a position to ACTUALLY have others' back.

Obama said it -- I think to Dreamers. How downright cruel.

some completely over-used to death phrase like "the Devil is in the Details", "At the End of the Day", "It is What it Is", etc - it automatically makes what they have to say seem banal.

Spot on.
Whackadoodle.
Ilk.
Vile.

I was gonna say "sociopath", but that one's more of a misuse than an overuse. Although here, it's definitely overused.

connect the dots
wrap my head/brain/whatever around it
moving forward (as opposed to moving backward?) redundant
no brainer
reach out

Someone coined that after 911 and we never got rid of it.

We inherited "disingenuous" from OJ trial. Cannot stand that word.

First recorded in 1645, according to dictionary.com

But if it reminded me of the OJ trial, I would probably feel the same as you!

But its overuse makes me crazy.

"connect the dots" was brilliantly descriptive of our failure to connect isolated events before 911. Within 48 hours after 911 I could no longer bear to watch TV, not just because of the replaying of the horrors of that day, but because someone was going to say "connect the dots" every 2 minutes.

Connect the dots reminds me of the coloring books that kids used to have-- a children's game. It sounds weird to me when I hear adults using it

....Among those guaranteed to make my head explode are:

Take a listen. I hear this on news broadcasts all the time. You can take a look, but you can't take a listen.

Put on your big girl panties. Implying the person this is directed at isn't being mature and responsible, and needs to grow up. I find it insulting.

Cray-cray--for crazy. That's just silly
Convo--for conversation. What...you're so damn busy you don't have time to say the last 2 syllables!

And (for now anyway), va-cay. We all need a vacation from your VACAY!

Just say, or type out, "delicious" for fuck's sake. It's only three more letters.

-- because saying the two extra syllables in "presentation" would waste precious seconds that we could be using trying to stay awake while discussing yet another set of meaningless PowerPoint charts.

It's so cynical it depresses the shit out of me.

Is often far too accurate though.

Always means just the opposite

...outside of the box, after a fashion, but not wanting to air my dirty laundry, I've bent over backwards to make my use of cliches to be the best thing since sliced bread, you can bet your bottom dollar - not to beat around the bush - that I should be given the benefit of the doubt since I know that I'm between a rock and a hard place when it comes to letting sleeping dogs lie, needless to say, when I try to show people that I'm a real Einstein, even if my rags to riches story hasn't actually lead me to being rich and famous, which is par for the course, of course, since I lie like a rug even if actually I am the salt of the earth but am still likely to reap what I sow, and I think that anyone trying to shoot the breeze with me will not see eye to eye with me about whether or not I am as sharp as a tack, even if it's six of one, half a dozen of the other, the fact is that I'll have to sink or swim with my attempt to share the unvarnished truth about my whole ball of wax and getting me to upset the apple cart on this practice will end up being an exercise in spinning my wheels in this day and age, it's not you, it's me, and I guess I should just throw in the towel because it's the same old story if I take the plunge on this task of not paving the road to hell with good intentions, which probably rings a bell with you, I'm on a roll here and I may have missed the boat on this task of not using cliches.

It is what it is.

I fight a losing battle every semester against the cliches that fill my students' essays.

...so to speak, because you must be banging your head against the wall trying to keep their eyes on the ball as luck would have it, and I never say never, although I'd be scared to death of a case of the pot calling the kettle black but if you play your cards right and don't judge a book by its cover, and forgive and forget, you can probably make their writing as fit as a fiddle and get them over the hump by using that ace in the hole though this is not written in stone, especially on the kinds of stones people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw.

Obviously the lunatics are running the asylum and I'm going all in, doubling-down and betting my last dollar that you're dealing off the bottom of the deck and that this will not stand ... but as you well know I'm playing with house money so even if I just let the chips fall where they may, I won't be walking the plank anytime soon ... and that's not just shooting from the hip or casting pearls before swine cause your odds are about as good as you winning the lottery, so you'll keep the pedal to the metal if you know what's good for you.

You'd best believe I can do this all the live-long day, which is to say if the past is prologue to what the future might hold in store and you get down to brass tacks there's really no telling what a man might do when he's pushed to the edge, with his back up against the wall!

...and I'm not going to pull any punches, or attempt to pull the wool over your eyes, because you've brought us back to square one with this, and I hope you won't think I'm yanking your chain, but the naked truth - as naked as a jaybird - when I say that it's no skin off my back is that clearly you've put your nose to the grindstone and your last ditch effort, your last hurrah, and it may be the straw that broke the camel's back, and thus maybe my post is more or less the spitting image of yours, and even if we've been over this ground before, still I don't think we should put all our eggs in one basket, so to speak, and should be back in the saddle as quick as lightening and get down to brass tacks with cliche speak.

I hope I'm not spilling the beans here, but I thought I should put this on the table.

He's woke , she's woke , you're woke. Drives me nuts.

It's "huh?" My age showing.

"That I can tell you."

More:

"Let's unpack this" - been on the news lately

"Fake news"

"Paradigm shift"

“The reason he dropped the pass was he lost concentration”

pretend cover for some rude move for which they're obviously not "sorry," and keep right on doing whatever they're "sorry" for.

"My bad" which is meant to self-absolve the offender for doing something wrong to someone else. It's a "no apology intended, I did it, I'm getting away with it, so fuck you" statement.

Hate that phrase.

I used tell my daughter when she complained, "it builds character" ...she hated it and I must admit that I do as well

or the infamous "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger"

is that the people saying it (the poor managers) are the ones who built the box in the first place! They first lay out the rules in ways designed to be sure that your productivity will go down and be of low quality.

I think it's making an unfortunate comeback. Hadn't heard it in many years. Don't even know why I hate it so much.

when they mean "figuratively"

Literally.

I don’t know where he picked it up. I asked him to stop using it in conversation.

What cliches and hackneyed phrases do I use that drive everyone else crazy? Seems that I use quite a few

instead of "you're welcome" - drives me damn crazy!

I want to say, "Did I say there was a problem? Maybe you're the one with the fricken problem!"

Oh yeah, I hate "fricken" as well, but I'm sure somebody else has already covered that.

Corporate babble.

particularly when used about situations that are in reality mild annoyances. For example, "The line outside the club was a total nightmare! It must have taken us 10 minutes to get to our table!"

I started noticing this one about 1999. Now it's so commonplace that most people wouldn't even regard it as unusual.

And there's still "I could care less," when of course the speaker means he or she couldn't care less!

When people say they are “devastated.” You mean your entire family just perished in a fiery car crash? No, my yoga class was cancelled.

Oh, so you haven't been so far?

1. almost never actually true so hides the truth
2. aids and abets the insidious cause of false equivalency

uttered after somebody apologizes, often at work. In this context, "It's all good" usually means "Oh, fuck! Now I have to clean up your mess, plus do my own fuckin' job! I wanna strangle you right now!!"

It seems that everyone interviewed uses this phrase. Once I noticed it, I started doing a mental countdown until the interviewee or analyst says it. Happens nearly every time. Wish I hadn't noticed it - drives me crazy.

Makes me clinch my teeth. An excuse for everything.

to his presentation! Then the freakin' CEO says it and looks even dumber!

Something offensive is about to be said.

"Have a blessed day" or in response to the question "how are you?' you get the response "I'm blessed" AAARRRGHGHHHHH!

happens for a reason. No it doesn’t, generally the stuff people say that about is just pretty damn random.

Also, overnight everything seems to have become a “conversation.” “If he wants to be part of the conversation he better step up his game before Olympics.”

but I am sooooo sick of this phrase. It is used in every weather forecast to describe a day in which the weather will have some negative effect on something/someone.

It's going to snow - impact weather day
It's going to be freezing cold - impact weather day
It's going to be windy - impact weather day
It's going to rain - impact weather day

Any day that is not 70 and sunny I guess is an impact weather day. I live in the Northeast, we get it!

We love you TV news writers but...
...sometimes you stink.


(Sorry Febreze TV commercial writers)

Try "If this is true" or "If this is accurate" or "If this turns out to be true".

Come on, people. You're not cave men.

Blech.

said in a deadpan voice to indicate "My life is hell and I won't relent until you're as miserable as I am."

I admit, the first couple of times I heard this expression, I thought it was cute. It wears thin pretty quickly, though.

Amazeballs is right up there too.

Guilty. Holdover from college....

I don't know why.

Like when someone says 'that doesn't jive with what we know' ... the damn word is JIBE!!! You misheard (or whoever exposed you to it ... got it wrong) and have been saying it wrong, probably forever.

Another major annoyance to me is when people use the word 'anymore' as if it were synonymous with 'nowadays', when it actually means 'any longer'.

Like 'Anymore we go to the beach on Sundays instead of Church'. That kinda shit. Drives me bonkers.

Also hate 'Which Begs The Question ...'

Cause this: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/53/Begging-the-Question

AFA what was actually asked in the OP, I'll go with 'Have your cake and eat it too'.

I hate that one.

another:
take a listen

Next time I hear it I'm going to stab something

Last edited Sun Jan 14, 2018, 03:42 PM - Edit history (1)

If one word was sufficient for hundreds of years, why do people all of a sudden use two words to say the exact same thing?