Expressions You Hate!

[ifyoucantfixit]

       I hate when people on the news say  "according to unnamed sources."   How can someone be
a valid source, when they are not even willing to give their name?

[Nevermore]

None of them really irk me, though I remember when I was living in the UK and "at the end of the day" was the phrase du jour--I remember a hilarious interview with Geri Halliwell where she used it like, ten times, including "At then end of the day, in the morning..."
'Under the bus" gets my vote for the hackneyed expression of the election season, and "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. In fact there's another one--"out of the ether."

[Kerry]

Well YOU ended up voting didn't you?

So it worked!

Kerry, you may thank me now!

THANK YOU, DAVID!       

Your experience with "per" reminds me of an expression I hate - and I'm  the one who uses it!    It's "per se." God knows where I picked it up. Probably at work. I'm acutely aware how pretentious it sounds. I don't seem to have any power over it. It just slips out, of its own accord, when I least expect it!     

Speaking of bad habits acquired at work, I remember my boss going through a stage a couple of years ago when she started using a whole range of particularly weird buzz words when making a presentation. It was probably back in the 90s when they were relatively new. We are all familiar with "level playing field" which has become part of the language.  One that I am particularly glad did not take off is "helicoptering" - excuse the pun. (Yetch! I also hate it when people say "excuse the pun.") Apparently, "helicoptering" means to look at the big picture as a whole, as if you were viewing it from above. The boss only ever used it once and was nearly laughed off the podium. 

[optom3]

When I was back in England I used to hate the phrase, love as in shop assistants saying, will that be all love? I am not their love.

My kids had also started to say, like at the end of each sentence, as in you know like, always going up at the end. Grrrr.

I also hate corporate motivating phrases such as, there is no I in team, and let's make sure we are all singing from the same song sheet.!!!

Personally I really over use the word, really, and just. It was just so annoying and I really don't beleve.

Hundreds more but that will do for the time.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I picked just "fairly unique" and "shouldn't of."

"Shouldn't of" is just plain grammatically wrong, or, if, not, it's substandard English. Expand "shouldn't" and you end up with "should not of." That's just wrong. The expression should be "should not have," as in, "You should not have done that," or, "You shouldn't have done that." If you are writing dialogue, I suppose you could write, "You shouldn't 've done that."

"Unique," like "pregnant," is something that either you are or you aren't. There is no such thing as degrees of uniqueness.

[southendmd]

Don't get me started!  I have lots of language pet peeves.  Most involve bad grammar, but I think Kerry's thread is more about annoying, trite phrases.

My latest:  going forward.  Can't stand it.  I once heard an introductory speech by a colleague who used the phrase in every  sentence.  (He later resigned because of "health" problems, which turned out to be a sex scandal, but, no connection, I'm sure.  )

I'm with Jeff about modifying "unique".  Can't be done!

One more:  I could care less.  No!  Think about it...if you could care less, you could care less.  The real phrase is I couldn't care less.  As in, there is nothing about which I could care less. 

[MaineWriter]

At this point in time...time has no points. It should be "at this time."

I can't stand personifcation: "Hospitals trust Tylenol." No, hospitals don't trust Tylenol. The nurses and doctors inside the hospital might trust Tylenol, but the hospital itself has no opinion on the matter.

L

[Lynne]

Language is very cool and funny to think about.  I tend to pick up expressions from people fairly easily, then I have to wonder - how did that happen??  It's been going on my whole life, though...I am a sponge...assimilate or die...etc.

When I was hanging out in Harvard Square, it was hip-hop speak like "Word" to emphasize a point.

An old boyfriend got me in the habit of "Back in the day"...at least I didn't pick up "old school" from him.    Worse than genital warts, I swear!

And of course "I swear" and "Tell you what", though I could argue that those shouldn't count. 

Lately it's Buffy-speak like "<adjective>, much?" and making adverbs out of any words that come to mind.

My #1 peeve expression, though, is "rule of thumb."  This phrase never fails to annoy me since I first learned its history - evidently it refers to the diameter of the rod a man was allowed to use to beat his wife during Colonial days.

[David In Indy]

I picked just "fairly unique" and "shouldn't of."

"Shouldn't of" is just plain grammatically wrong, or, if, not, it's substandard English. Expand "shouldn't" and you end up with "should not of." That's just wrong. The expression should be "should not have," as in, "You should not have done that," or, "You shouldn't have done that." If you are writing dialogue, I suppose you could write, "You shouldn't 've done that."

"Unique," like "pregnant," is something that either you are or you aren't. There is no such thing as degrees of uniqueness.

I think when I say it I say "shouldn't have" but with my twangy Indiana accent it sounds like "of". Actually I guess I'm saying "shouldn't huv". (huv=have). Or something like that anyway!

[Shasta542]

I think when I say it I say "shouldn't have" but with my twangy Indiana accent it sounds like "of". Actually I guess I'm saying "shouldn't huv". (huv=have). Or something like that anyway!

"Should've", the contraction for "should have" sounds like "should of" when articulated. Maybe that's why "shouldn't have" sounds like "shouldn't of" -- it's all run together like a contraction!  You could just say "shoulda" and "shouldna".