What overused phrases bug you?

Mine:
It's all good (No it isn't. Death and poverty come to mind)
Whatever (Why not just say "Who gives a shit?")
It is what it is (Obviously)
Yada-yada-yada (It wasn't even funny when Seinfeld used it)
It's probably for the best (Losing my job? Explain how, exactly)

I also don't like hearing the phrase "I'm going to have to give you an anal probe now" but that's not a cliche. Yet.

:rofl:

n/t

She absolutely can't make it through a single sentence without using it at least once. Usually it's several times. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

In twentysomethings ("And I'm like...and he was like...and so I'm like...and then he was like" ad infinitum) and in their elders, use of like has proliferated to an alarming degree. Every time I hear it overused in conversations, I want to turn around and tell the speaker exactly what she (and it's most often a she) is doing. :grr:

:evilgrin:

"Likespeak" gets stuck in my head while I am at work, and it takes a good hour or two to stop after I leave for the day. Ugh!

I first noticed this when Major League baseball players spoke. Ex-Yankee Paul O'Neill, now a commentator - I can't stand to listen to him because he'll start new sentences, NOT preceded by any other comment, with "I mean,..."   WTF?    "I mean" should be used to clarify something already spoken, perhaps not clearly or eloquently enough, so that you want to explain "what I really mean is..." But, after hearing O'Neill, I started noticing that almost every baseball player interviewed after a game sprinkled his comments liberally with "I mean" also (though not as egregiously as O'Neill starting a comment with that useless non-expression).

Since THEN, I've noticed many, many, many other people doing the same thing! I can't stand it! It's the new "like, like, like" and "ya know?"

I mean, ya know?????
 
:wtf:    :shrug::shrug::shrug::shrug::shrug:     :grr:

The stuff we say without really thinking about it...

Actually it's from Don Quixote. "The proof of the pudding is the eating."

Somehow it mutated.

Could care less means you must care.... Since you could care less than you do now.

but whatever, it's probably for the best anyway.

For some reason, my adult niece has started saying this.

And if you're not going to lie, you don't need to announce that you're not going to lie!

:shrug:

What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? etc, etc, etc.........

Doesn't anybody say Pardon me anymore?

when used in lieu of "you're welcome."

no problem????? Who the fuck said it was a problem???

We're gonna have to leave it right there..

The fact of the matter is...

Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

"I'm loving it" from Mcdonalds. It's grammatically incorrect fuckers and you're making my job as a tutor all the more difficult!

"It is what it is." Well maybe you could quit being such a morbid, inept asshole and do something about it huh?

"Coulda, shoulda, woulda" You didn't, you suck, now take responsibility for your fuck up.

That is all for now.

It betrays a lack of understanding between the distinction in the use of the present progressive in active versus stative verbs. It's an odd grammatical quirk that English got from Old Welsh and so it's hard for, say, native Spanish or German speakers to get.

Unless the speaker is groping a cantalope and identifying it as a grape, for which he would be quite correct in alleging that he "feels badly" ...he means "I feel bad about that." "Feel", as in emotion, doesn't take an adverb, but an adjective...ie: I feel stupid (not stupidly) I feel angry (not angrily.)
Thank you for your time and attention.

I hate when someone says "my bad" when they're supposed to say, "I'm sorry." It sounds insincere.

I hate when someone says "my bad" when they're supposed to say, "I'm sorry." It sounds insincere.

He's a walking cliche.

First time I saw him on TV I figured he must drive a Hummer and probably voted for W...twice.

Everything about him. From his stupid hair, to his thick leather bracelets, to his moronic shows. He's a total shit stain.

voter living in a McMansion who goes to a megachurch and holds a megamortgage. He may not be any of those things, but he just looks like a typical inyoface RW moran.

His show makes me hungry.

the kicker is how he provides people in his shows with the black visors with the fake spikey blond hair wig.

i would love to see a cage match with Ina Garten and Guy. Trust me, Ina would take his spikey ass down while making something delicious and wearing a blue shirt while her gay friends cheered.

...MONEY!!! (Speaking of annoying, overused words and phrases...) I like his "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" show, but I also find him annoying. Been spoiled by Anthony Bourdain's show, I guess.

As opposed to five minutes from ten minutes ago? How about simply: In five minutes?

with bonus points for the irony of using zombie-corporate-speak to express something completely antithetical to the corporate mindset.

Also:

"Moving forward, I think we should..."

"stickiness" instead of "product loyalty"

All of these sound insincere. They imply that the speaker has some way of knowing something that he/she *can't* know about the future. "Everything has to get better eventually" is obviously a lie, because for most people at most times their situation doesn't get better with time; and for each of us there will come the day when it will certainly not ever get any better.

It's meant to comfort and I know that, but I always feel like the person saying stuff like that thinks I am stupid or gullible enough to believe something that is demonstrably not true just because he/she tells me.

Tucker

When did "better" turn into a verb? Why has "to improve" dropped off the face of the language?

"Commander AND Chief" instead of "Commander IN Chief."

"For all intensive purposes" instead of "For all intents and purposes."

"Irregardless" instead of "regardless."

Tucker

As for "Commander AND Chief", "and" and "in" often reduce to a syllabic N when unstressed.

hear it a thousand times a day

and newscasts.

and even worse, is when they say it twice, "whatever, whatever." As though saying it once wasn't enuff! Argghhhh!

"enuff" :)

"Do I like doing this?" "Is this a good thing to do"? "Why am I doing this?

I dunno....don't ask me!

beloved by media "personalities" and politicians.
mark

I believe it's Mark Malone. I'm thinking, "Fella, I know it's been 30 years, but those people are still just as dead, so maybe you could find some other flippant little phrase to convey that players have bought into the coach's philosophy without having to disrespect 1,000 dead people." Granted, we had a "drinking the Kool-Aid" phase here, but we were at least referring to Bushistas going along with the willful self-destruction of the country; the analogy actually fit.

It is a simple network transmission called an "echo request"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping

ping is a computer network tool used to test whether a particular host is reachable across an IP network; it is also used to self test the network interface card of the computer, or as a latency test. It works by sending ICMP “echo request” packets to the target host and listening for ICMP “echo response” replies. The "echo response" is sometimes called a pong. Ping measures the round-trip time<1> and records any packet loss, and prints when finished a statistical summary of the echo response packets received, the minimum, mean, max and in some versions the standard deviation of the round trip time.

The word ping is also frequently used as a noun or verb, where it is used to refer to the round-trip time, or measuring the round-trip time.

The tool is also used in a type of simple denial-of-service attack, known as a ping flood, in which the attacker overwhelms the victim with ICMP echo request packets.

Thank you very much.

"Everything happens for a reason" No, things happen from causes. The effect might be adapting, or learning, which might make something *appear* to happen for a reason.

Empty platitudes are the most overused phrases, to me.

What's wrong with findings - as in "the report's findings showed..."?

And I HATE "we'll reach out to you next week". How about just "I'll call you/I'll email you/I'll contact you next week"? Ugh. if you reach out to me, I'll bite your hand.

:scared:

It's HUGE at one of our clients, and then a headhunter (from another part of the country) used it this week. And a friend in London has heard it over there too. Eeww.

Seriously - one guy at our clients' office called and said "well, I want to know who it was that reached out to Dr X's office, because Dr. X reached out to us and complained that someone had reached out to him three times, and we don't want someone harrassing Dr. X". I had to break in and say "by 'reach out to' do you mean that they called Dr. X?".

Then we got a memo from a different person at that company saying "we'll reach out to you when a decision is made about the contract next week".

So let me clarify:
"reaching out" to us to complain about a problem: BAD
"reaching out" to us to give us a contract: I'll live with that

so it's not all bad! :D

People use those way too much.

It drives me crazy when people say that and the next time someone says it I'm going to say "No, it really doesn't make sense".

:rofl:

Also, "quit urinating on my stoop you filthy boozehound". That one is starting to wear on me a little bit too.

meh.. it bugs me..especially in chat.

Well I should fucking hope you're COMPLETELY honest with me all of the time..... :wtf: :banghead:

when talking about things that people often fudge on for social reasons. You know, like my friend wants to know what I think of her new shoes. Generally, I wouldn't tell her if I didn't like them, unless asked. If she's asking, I'll tell her I'm going to be honest with her because many people wouldn't be, as it's considered impolite. I don't say it often though, because most of my friends already know I'm going to tell them what I think :P

Although, I'd never say "to be COMPLETELY honest with you." I'd say "my honest opinion is..." The implication with the first phrase is that sometimes a person is only partially honest. It pisses me off when my Tech tells it to me at work as part of a bullshit excuse as to why she can't work harder.


"To be completely honest with you, it's just too distracting here... it's hard for me to stay on task." Gaaaaag. Put your big girl undies on and learn to work around distraction!!!! The rest of us do it!!


Oops.. guess I've got some festering rage.. sorry :rant:

...normal conversation. Thus the phrase is a bluntness warning.

Kids, teens, say this, and they even write it, thinking it is correct. Just try to correct them, and they act like you're some stuffy un-hip english professor.

Such redundant grammatical marking is actually not uncommon, it the source of "children"

The original plural was -er, then another Middle English plural marker, -en, got tacked on. And in some speakers today you even here "childrens".

Grandiose and time-wasting. Why can't they just say "now"?

It can be used to soften up the negativity of a negative sentence, among other things. For example, "I can't do it at this time" sounds a little gentler than "I can't do it now".

It sounds fucking stupid.

Arrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!

the business term "synergy" {who the fuck really knows what the hell that means}

to use another cliche

do we need to use fancy terms. it sounds so republican (lol)

Using it in the past tense is even more annoying.

Fuck, I'm tired of hearing that one three times a night.

"leverage" as a verb
"wow...just wow"
"____ is not an option"

Makes my skin crawl!

:)

along with the overuse of "basically & literally"

aaaaaggghhh!

Corporate America was never very original, but that one needs to go.

"God was looking over me"

sanctimonious bullshit

Also, as has been mentioned, 'my bad'.
And if you find yourself working around a speaker of British English you might quickly grow tired of hearing 'sort it out'.

It sounds ignorant as hell.

I'm hearing this more and more - "Love me some CSI," "Love me some Molson Golden," and so on. How about "Love me some literate-sounding speech?"

It's an indefinite 3rd person construction (hence the -s on the verb). :)

or any derivation thereof.

Obama was going to escalate the war in afghanistan when you voted for him so why are you complaining NOW?"

Overdone, even on Galactica

;)

What? Where is it?

The two most overused verbs in the office, these days.....

As in He has gone missing or he went missing. Drives me crazy.

:rofl:

"So horny little devil
You better listen
Before your ass turn up missin'
And it's like that."

- Ice Cube

(Awesome!)

:rofl:

so does:

_____ is the new _____

blond moment (always said by someone who is not a blond like oh sure I'm not RIGHT HERE blond and smarter than you)

on your plate

it is what it is

do you have any idea how fast you were going (that may not be as cliche as a personal issue)

It's not what you do once in a while, it's what you do every day (said to me by fat people trying to get me to eat a deep fried ho ho or something after I turn them down because it's immoral to eat a fried ho ho)

slow and steady wins the race (no it doesn't, slow and steady may finish the race but only fast and steady wins it)

I have issues (that's not one just a commentary)

The worst there is, and unfortunately, popular on Democratic Underground. Thanks.
quickesst

Or, "I'm blessed." when you ask someone how they are. I've just stopped asking. :eyes:

It's just so pompous and arrogant.

Usually uttered by abysmally bad parents who can't supervise them, worrying about what they'll make of something that is either

A. None of the children's business
B. Should have been monitored so the children never see it
C. Something a person did who never signed up to be a role model or mentor for the little snotnoses

Actually not so much in use these days since many people don't even ride a horse.

lol

that is so stupid, what happened to

The mother of my child

or

The father of my child

along with nearly every other phrase Dubya used to utter.

Also... "know what I'm sayin?" "spot on"

It's turned into a passive/aggressive insult.

At that time I nominated 'quality' when used as an adjective, and 'we must make tough decisions'.

I would now add to these 'thinking the unthinkable' (usually related to cutting public services). And since becoming more aware of the American right's slogans, ANY variation on 'healthcare is not a right'.

And on a different point, the trivializing use of the word 'Nazi' for someone who is simply seen as too bossy: 'health Nazi', 'smoking Nazi', 'feminazi', etc.

I hear it every day from one of the stupidest people I've ever met. I think she's under the impression that it makes her sound intelligent.

It doesn't.

Person of interest (just say suspect)
Epic fail
Being on board (just say together)

The overuse of 'Impact' (having to discuss your 'Impact Plan' all the time, for example)

'Delivering the curriculum' (what happened to TEACHING?)

One that is common with university students: 'fluey' as an adjective; e.g. 'She's a bit fluey'. People are *not* fluey; they *have the flu*, and if they really do, there's usually no 'a bit' about it!

'Western medicine'; it's just medicine for those who can afford it, not specific to the West at all.

Used at work when someone is about to explain something that they don't really understand. lol.

absurdity. :eyes:

Under the bus
Jump the shark
deja vu all over again

Why is it females can be called "Dude" ? "Dudette" is worse... meh.
Also: "sendin some love" from someone you don't even know..

Methinks just absolutely kills me. We get it a lot here at DU. Way too Rennaissance Faire, or even worse than that. Honestly, I half suspect that half of the Methinksers are virtual furries as well. Thank God for H1B visas -- the geeks have devalued our culture enough already (viz, "gaming", major movies based on obscure comic books that none of us normals had ever heard of, etc. etc.)

Imagine how bad it would be if these people were making major money? What a terrible influence it would be! Bring on Raj and Vikram! At least they'll work for less, and be far less socially pernicious!

:hide:

it really bugs me!;)

Is pretty bad.

http://grammartips.homestead.com/anyway.html


Do not say or write "anyways" -- not ever. The word is "anyway."

The form "anyways" is found in some dialects in the United States, but it is not standard English, and it should never be used in any situation where you want to be considered reasonably well educated.


That's all there is to it.

Ooooh, let me be *really* clever, and accuse a DUer of being a "concern troll" with this, the most overused passive-aggressive cliche on DU! And it's *so* much easier to simply post "Thank you for your concern" than to come up with substantive arguments and actually make a positive contribution to the thread. And it's *much* cleverer than simply hitting "Alert" in the small number of cases when the OP *really* is a troll, and letting the moderators deal with the situation. Because if I just hit "Alert" the rest of DU will not know about my troll-spotting powers, and I really want to impress everybody!

aaarrrggghh

Huh?

I literally will kill anyone who misuses that word. :sarcasm:

I laugh when I hear it.