Expressions You Hate!

[Brown Eyes]

"personal friend" - what other kind is there?

Heya Elle.  I can understand why that would seem a bit redundant.  But, I can also see, perhaps, something like a distinction between "at-work friends" and "personal friends."

[Ellemeno]

A, "with all due respect," either they are friends or they ain't.  At least that's how "I personally" see it.

[Jeff Wrangler]

To me, "hopefully" and "I hope" have slightly different connotations. "I hope" seems an expression of more personal desires, while "hopefully" more readily includes the listener, and maybe even fate in general. Also, "I hope" seems more iffy, whereas "hopefully" seems more or less assured.

For example, "I hope we can go tomorrow," seems more like a personal wish for a prospect that's far from guaranteed. "Hopefully, we'll go tomorrow" it seems mutually agreed upon, and pretty likely to happen if all goes well.

"One hopes we'll go tomorrow" or "It is to be hoped we'll go tomorrow" are closer matches to the misused "hopefully," but it is to be hoped that one doesn't have to hear them in conversation.

Yes, but people say or write, "Hopefully we'll go tomorrow" when they mean, "I hope we'll go tomorrow."

[Wayne]

Going forward.   

[serious crayons]

Yes, but people say or write, "Hopefully we'll go tomorrow" when they mean, "I hope we'll go tomorrow."

I s'pose. But when they do, I never think they actually mean they will set out tomorrow buoyed with a feeling of hope. So that meaning for the word seems obsolete. Might as well adopt the easy one.

It's kind of like using "they" about a single individual of indeterminate gender. Yes, "he or she" is more correct, or you can try to put it in plural, and in writing I would avoid it, but if someone else wants to use "they" I'm OK with them doing it.

Heya Elle.  I can understand why that would seem a bit redundant.  But, I can also see, perhaps, something like a distinction between "at-work friends" and "personal friends."

I always think "personal friend" is a way to emphasize your closeness to someone you're name-dropping, thereby inflating your own importance. As in, "Barack Obama's dentist's cousin is a personal friend of mine."

[Wayne]

"meme" became one of those words like "paradigm" and "meld" that are deployed to display intellectual-with-it-ism and seem to emerge from the ether into common usage rapidly enough to go from obscurity to majorly annoying in a couple of days.

I have to admit I am really uncomfortable with the use of the word "meme" to mean a short funny questionnaire. It gives the impression that the speaker doesn't know what a meme actually is, which is a little embarrassing.   

[Wayne]

Here's another one: "The boss wants to talk to Sally and I." This one makes me kind of sad, because it's someone trying their best to be grammatically correct (they know not to say, "Sally and me want to talk to the boss") but they're trying too hard! I always want to gently tell them to take Sally out of the sentence and see how it sounds. But I usually bite my tongue because I don't want the speaker to get mad at I.

  Oh, yes that is a distressing one.

Always makes me think of the line from that Christmas song:

"For poor lonely sinners like you and like I."

At least there it is explicit! That actually makes it tolerable.   

[Wayne]

Back to "Why don't you do such and such" -- the one I really hate is "I need you to do such and such."

Ooooh, yes how arrogant!   

Or turn it around and make it "You need to blah blah blah."

"You need to give me those crayons."    (from "The Object of My Affection" [the book - not sure if it's in the movie.])

That's one of my favorites to use with my cats. "You need to stay on your tal." (My cats say "towel" with a Kentucky accent.)

[Jeff Wrangler]

I always think "personal friend" is a way to emphasize your closeness to someone you're name-dropping, thereby inflating your own importance. As in, "Barack Obama's dentist's cousin is a personal friend of mine."

And then, of course, we have the qualifier close, as in "close personal friend."

I presume as opposed to more distant personal friends. ... 

[Wayne]

Shouldn't of   

I love to write that one. It's like, so far beyond the pale that no one would think it's a mistake.

I guess I sortive like it.   

Now, spoken, it would just be "shouldn't've" which is altogether okay.