Social Question

zensky's avatar

OMG. After that, anything will sound stupid - right?

Asked by zensky (13418points) February 19th, 2013

Other than that slang/txtspk – what other expressions will make you roll your eyes?

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93 Answers

picante's avatar

Today’s list of jargon that makes me roll my eyes:

Impactful
Disruptive [technologies, ideas, leadership]
Spherical models

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

Well, I, like, want to, like, rip the skin off, like, my own body, you know, when I, like, hear some , you know, young women, like, talk.

chyna's avatar

Conversate
Really? Can’t people just say “we talked” instead of “we conversated”? Yes, I have heard people use it.

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

“Utilize” Why say, “He utilized his resources well” when “He used his resources well” works so well?

“At this point in time.” This one goes back to the Watergate days. There was this crazy fad of saying “I’d like to leave at this point in time” instead of “I’d like to leave now.”

“Thinking outside the box” and “Pushing the envelope.” Isn’t it enough just to be creative, clever, resourceful, assertive, etc.?

“Most unique.” Either something’s unique or it isn’t. It can’t be more or most unique.

Pachy's avatar

“Reach out”—as in “I’ll reach out to him”—makes me CRAAAAAAAZY.

picante's avatar

Oh, how about “bio break”—I really don’t need to know what you do on your break—just go away for a bit. “Break” works nicely. God forbid we move toward more specificity: “It’s time to empty our bladders, team.” “Anyone need to take a dump?”

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

Ooh…let’s not forget “Majority consensus” and “General consensus.” Consensus means 100% agreement. Period.

I try to cut people slack on “Consensus of opinion,” because the matter at hand can be subjective or objective. What I mean is, I guess there can be a “Consensus of fact.”

KNOWITALL's avatar

I don’t mind textspeak or slang actually, it’s quicker. Now if you say Lib-ary that is a problem.

zenvelo's avatar

I sent a draft back to the lawyers today for using the word “incentivize” instead of “incent”.

And how come people want to resonate? They all want to vibrate in proportion to you?

zensky's avatar

LOL

Oops.

blueiiznh's avatar

“Hear me out”
“WTF were you thinking”
“Where the hell are you”
“We need to talk”

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

@KNOWITALL What about “Feb-u-ary”? :-)

KNOWITALL's avatar

@SadieMartinPaul Drives me insane and so does all the typical misspeaks like ‘pa-sketti’.

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

Why do people walk around saying, “LOL”? If one is laughing out loud, shouldn’t that person be, well, laughing out loud?

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

@KNOWITALL I’ve developed a really bad habit of saying ‘Preciate it. I hear myself, and I think, “Yuck!”. I really need to work on that one.

JLeslie's avatar

Aks is probably the worst. Do people who say that actually spell ask aks? Or, ax?

I love some of the answers above, Febuary, reach out, libary, like, like, like all good.

I try not to use the word “got” but sometimes do. So many better words than got.

I don’t understand what is wrong with the word “utilized,” I use that word if a paragraph is already full of a lot of “used.” Synonyms can be a good thing.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@SadieMartinPaul You should hear my brain when I get on fb and see all the misspellings, I try very hard not to be a spelling Nazi though. Occasionally I do a double-negative and make myself cringe. It’s the hillbilly in me- bleh.

@JLeslie I hate axt….omg, it drives me, like crazy. (lol)

JLeslie's avatar

Axt, yeah, that is a better spelling. Thanks for that.

mazingerz88's avatar

God bless. Ugh.

Judi's avatar

I still want to know who the stupid New York television writer is who has common police officers using the term forthwith on shows like NYPD Blue and now Blue Bloods. It always sounds so awkward to me when I hear it.
“I need a bus, forthwith!”

ragingloli's avatar

“Job Creator”. It is like referring to a rapist as “caretaker”.

gailcalled's avatar

^^^Better, I guess, than thirdwith or fifthwith.

I could of done it better.

I graduated college.

“I couldn’t care less/ I could care less,” and their buddy, “I couldn’t agree more.”—I am still not sure what any of those are supposed to mean.

Equating Nazi or Gestapo with spelling or grammar.

Using hyperbole for silly things; “I hate wedges of iceberg lettuce” springs to mind. Now, if you hate mint sprigs and fresh raspberries on desserts as decor, that is a different matter.

The true facts.

Repeatedly getting the homonyms wrong…phase and faze, bizarre and bazaar, for example.

ucme's avatar

Life coach/guru…shut the fuck up!

zensky's avatar

Equating Nazi or Gestapo with spelling or grammar.

Yes.

JLeslie's avatar

Hahahahaha. You all can guess what I am laughing at. I’m keeping it to myself except for the LOL part in my first sentence here.

wundayatta's avatar

I am unanimous in that!

YARNLADY's avatar

I hate having to choose between lose and loose.

People who scatter fortuitous swear words around in their sentences.

glacial's avatar

@YARNLADY You mean they are being gratuitously fortuitous? Sorry to write so tortuously.

flutherother's avatar

When I hear ‘aksed’ I go postal. I feel someone is trying to steal my language from me.

Jeruba's avatar

[Deleted]

YARNLADY's avatar

@glacial I knew I should have looked that word up. It was the first thing that popped into my head.

glacial's avatar

@YARNLADY And I thought you were appreciative of my scattered swear words… :/

Sunny2's avatar

Nazi has become a suffix for anyone who is in a position to keep things up to standard and make corrections which must be followed by the culprit. For example, my chorus has dress nazis who check that everyone is dressed appropriately for concerts. It isn’t inappropriate. You will do this is dogmatic and no matter how nicely the correction, it’s a bit of an affront. But right is right, right?

KNOWITALL's avatar

Three people said it’s inappropriate to use -nazi, I did above. I would normally apologize but it doesn’t seem to be the thing to do here on fluther.

linguaphile's avatar

Any vacuous apology from a corporate/political entity like… “We regret the incident and are committed to working together towards a successful resolution to the issue at hand.” Every time one of these come out, I think, “Why bother… just don’t…”

There are books on this:
Why Business People Speak Like Idiots
The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit
and I especially enjoyed
Death Sentences: How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language

syz's avatar

Misuse of the word “literally”.

“The moon was so big I could literally reach out and touch it.” No, no you couldn’t.

The mistaken phrase “I could care less”, which is exactly the opposite of the opinion attempting to be expressed.

Coloma's avatar

I HATE the use of ” girl.”
“You go girl” ” etc. bleh.
I also despise the stupid popular pop mantras of ” 50 is the new 30” and “70 is the new 50.”
The frack you say….nope, 50 is 50 and 90 is 90 and don’t flippin’ pressure me to conform to this stupid philosophy. If want to sit on my porch in a rocker at 53, just STFU! lol

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

@syz I once heard a renowned historian describe the courtship of Martha Skelton and Thomas Jefferson as, “she literally swept him off his feet.” I pictured a lady chasing a man with a broom and knocking him over.

JLeslie's avatar

Here is one my husband would say: I hate when people use a percentage over 100%. I will work very hard, I will give you 110%!

linguaphile's avatar

Oh… another one I can’t stand is “What happens in ___ stays in ___.” That’s way past overdone.

zensky's avatar

@KNOWITALL No need to apologize. Both Gail and I come from families of survivors.

I won’t speak for the lady, but I have even used the term myself occasionally – mistakenly – stupidly. I try not to. It’s insensitive and harmful. It’s wrong.

But hey – it’s a free internet.

Kardamom's avatar

Downsize (we’re going to fire people)

Rightsize (we’re going to fire people)

Outsource (we’re going to use cheap labor overseas and not worry about regulations or safety and we’re going to fire people)

Long story short (it never is)

No problem (of course it isn’t!!!!!! I’m a paying customer, I’m not here to cause you problems, I’m here so that you can give me good service with regards to the products I may or may not purchase)

zensky's avatar

Relax.

I am now never going to relax. And neither should you after telling me to.

mazingerz88's avatar

^^ How about Relax Captain? Heh.

Kardamom's avatar

^^ Hee Hee

zensky's avatar

Hee hee. You’re both dead.

Kardamom's avatar

^^ Well then, I’ll just have to donate my body to science.

zensky's avatar

On behalf of science – we accept your body. PM me for mailing details.

Kardamom's avatar

@zensky Do you think they make a body sized bubble padded mailing envelope? Luckily I just trimmed my toenails today. But I didn’t paint them, maybe I should, even though they’re just going to cut the bone out anyway.

zensky's avatar

The idea is to prepare you for postage. Small, neatly wrapped pieces. It’ll be in the PM.

Thoughts.

AshLeigh's avatar

“That was a fail.”
“Epic fail.”
“That’s epic!”
Also, when anyone that is not me claims to be Batman. They’re obviously lying, since I’m the Batman.

Nothing is epic, kiddies. :)

zensky's avatar

But, Batman is epic.

woodcutter's avatar

When someone ends a monotone drivel storm with “but I digress” As if that is the break point where something of real importance is finally going to take place.

Hey buddy, thanks for boring the shit out of us and wasting our time paying attention to BS so now you can take the rest of what you are about to say, and go fuck yourself.

zensky's avatar

@woodcutter Don’t hold back – tell us what is really bothering you. But I digress.

woodcutter's avatar

digress away!

zensky's avatar

I’m old. What were we talking…

Sunny2's avatar

“As if!” said with great indignation. Don’t sweat it.
Do you like the word, platitudinous? They do get tiresome.

YARNLADY's avatar

“Get a life”

FutureMemory's avatar

Most definitely. I see/hear this one constantly, even here on Fluther. Can someone like gail or Jeruba weigh in on whether this expression even makes sense? Sounds like a case of “very unique” to me.

rooeytoo's avatar

I say omg but I never say anything stupid so that blows that theory!

“Ya know” always annoyed me when I was in USA, now the most repeated and often misused word here is “obviously.” On television, commentators insert it at least twice in every sentence!
Another is awesome, that word has lost all of its power because it is used to describe so many unawesome things! And of couse the same is true of fuck, that used to have such power, now it is ho hum. The c word is quickly achieving the same status, although I still cannot bring myself to utter that one!

Ron_C's avatar

I hate phrases like “thinking outside the box”, the use of awesome to describe anything a person likes, and white kids in small towns trying to affect a black-urban accent.

While we are at it, if you are a guy and plan to wear shorts, they should stop at the knee and be your size. The sight of a grown up wearing shorts that are 4 sizes too big and 18” too long is highly disturbing. I projects the image of a person that is a true follower and doesn’t own a mirror. If they do have a mirror, they’re too stupid to use it.

glacial's avatar

@FutureMemory And “quite literally”.

Judi's avatar

Americans overuse “Wow.” I never realized it until a tour guide who guided many international groups pointed it out. It’s our “go to” phrase when we’re impressed.

JLeslie's avatar

I use wow. I never thought about it. And, Fabulous and Fantastic. I hear awesome a lot also.

gailcalled's avatar

All of the overused adjectives – awesome, fabulous, and fantastic are perfect examples – have become meaningless to the reader and point only to a lazy writer.

What do you mean? If you are bothering to engage your reader, even here, why take an extra thirty seconds and craft a nice, tidy sentence?

@FutureMemory: I have been so obsessed with the seemingly infinitive ways of misspelling definitely, (I have a little list somewhere) that I have lost sight of the meaning. It must have meant something.

Personally, I dislike using “hopefully” to replace “I hope.” It abdicates responsibility but is now so recherché as to be a lost cause.

Exclamations such as “Wow” are OK because they are spontaneous outbursts, such as the French “Merde.”

The use of percentages over 100% is not cut-and-dried.

For example, profits increased by 120%.

“A percentage is just a ratio between two numbers. There are many situations where it is perfectly reasonable for the numerator of a fraction to be greater than the denominator.” Source.

augustlan's avatar

I can’t let go of “awesome”. I’ve tried and tried, but it’s just too ingrained in my 80s girl brain. I don’t know that fabulous and fantastic are over-used…when I use them, I generally mean it.

gailcalled's avatar

@augustlan: For me, if someone says, “That is awesome,” and I care, I then have to say, “What exactly do you mean?” Then my interlocutor has to find a synonym anyway.

The Sistine Chapel is awesome…fair enough. It does fill me with awe. The French fries are awesome…less so.

We all choose our battles, don’t we?

augustlan's avatar

We do. Which is awesome. ;)

Judi's avatar

@gailcalled, awesome is the new wow.
My daughter the English teacher (how I spawned one is anyone’s guess) embraces changes in vocabulary rather than fighting it. It is how language has evolved over the centuries.

gailcalled's avatar

@Judi:I know and I try not to be too rigid about linguistic evolution. It’s the lazy and limited that bother me. Overusing any word, no matter how delectable, is bad for interesting communication. Brava for your daughter, BTW.

Personally, I would much rather read an article in The New Yorker (not only well-edited and well-written but colorful and original) than in some, many, -most blogs, even thought they may be discussing the same material

ucme's avatar

I quite literally, most definitely, 138% genuinely can’t stand “my bad” & “just sayin.”

zensky's avatar

Mega – anything.

Super size anything.

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

@gailcalled “Overusing any word…is bad for interesting communication”

You’re really, really, really, really correct about that.

jonsblond's avatar

Lighten up

wundayatta's avatar

Think outside the bawx!

Unbroken's avatar

Trust me
anything repeated…
Say what?

zensky's avatar

Yeah dude.

Yeah.

Dude.

Both are overused. The latter – should’ve departed the labguage with Mr. Lebowski.

JLeslie's avatar

Naked Man (icky picky)

Kardamom's avatar

LOL indeed!

SamandMax's avatar

When I hear people – especially spotty faced oiks in their late teens – go “OH. MY. GOD”, I just want to slap them. When I hear people say things the way they are typed phonetically on the internet such as “er-mah-gherd” I tend to lose faith in the human race.
Politicians in my country tend to only have to speak one word to warrant me wanting to punch them in the face. David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith and Nick Clegg however, only need to breathe.

AshLeigh's avatar

I hate when people say “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
No it doesn’t, fuckers. What doesn’t kill me just pisses me off, and makes me bitter for ever having to go through it in the first place.

JLeslie's avatar

@AshLeigh I hate when people say that also.

ragingloli's avatar

My brother was a gold medalist in weight lifting. Then he lost both his arms. It did not kill him, but it certainly did not make him stronger. He only got bronze in the next competition.

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

Going back to the original question of which “expressions will make you roll your eyes?”

I had four pregnancy losses. It’s amazing what stupid things people will say, simply because they don’t know what to do or say.

“These things happen for a reason.” (No, they don’t. If there were any reason or plan, 12-year-old girls wouldn’t be giving birth, and nature wouldn’t send people more children than they want and can afford to raise.)

“You can try again.” (We’re talking about a baby, not about the SAT.)

“When the time is right, it’ll happen.” (The time was just fine, thank you very much.)

“You just need to relax.” (Huh?)

“It wasn’t meant to be.” (Neither were you. Go away.)

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