Overused and abused words

EricTheWeary

I use a lot of these as verbal ticks ( to be fair, basically,etc) and they do make their way into what I write so I wouldn’t usually criticise anyone else. The only one that actually annoys me is ‘guys’ or variations thereof such as hey guys or hey guy. Always sounds like a sad hipster dad who his pretending that he is best friends with his children whereas they think he is an idiot. When people use it on here it seems ostensibly friendly yet hugely insincere and that you are too important to have to take the time to use anyone’s name. 

When I was a manager I certainly fell into management speak. I would use ‘with my...hat on’ multiple times per day. So, with my performance hat on, with my risk management hat on, with my health and safety hat on,etc, often multiple hats within the same elongated sentence like Gus from Drop the Dead Donkey. It became like an outer body experience watching myself say this stuff wishing I’d shut up or at least make a decision. 

boogieman said

Nigella Lawson “loving” everything she prepares and cooks, and then giving that overused sideways, supposedly saucy, glance when she eats it.  

People on cookery programmes probably shouldn’t be allowed to speak. I love the ones on Masterchef who say ‘ I’m here because I love food’ and I just shout at the TV ‘ no you’re fat because you love food.’  Monica on Masterchef used to say element every two minutes ( every element of this dish, he’s really thought about every element, that’s a lovely element..) which in her accent sounded like ailament. I think someone had a word with her and she stopped saying it so I’ve stopped watching Masterchef. 

boogieman

thecolourbox said:

However, this concerns me:

boogieman said:

Nigella Lawson “loving” everything she prepares and cooks, and then giving that overused sideways, supposedly saucy, glance when she eats it.  

There is nothing negative that can be said against Nigella. Absolutely nothing.

Arghhh, Apologies for crap edit! 

I’ve liked her in previous series but the latest one is awful. She’s so irritatingly pretentious nowadays and those little smug smiles she does to herself EVERY SINGLE TIME when she eats really winds me up... it’s like watching the  village idiot. If she really ate all the things she claims she has for “supper” (and another thing, why don’t posh people have dinner or tea?) she’d be about 25 stone. 

JezWynd

'Hard working families' used to really annoy me; so condescending. Thankfully with the demise of G Brown it's falling into disuse.

'I mean' is my current bugbear. Every interview reply starts with 'I mean'. I caught Jon Snow saying it the other week on C4 news.

Kittyfrisk

Going forward or Moving forward.
Management speak for 'This is awkward' or 'Just fuck off with your incisive questions'.

Gandalph

Straight off the bat/from the get go - how about just good old fashioned ‘Right now’. 

Ball park figure - why not say ‘rough estimate’ and be done with your Americanisms. 
 

Jonathangus

"We are committed to..."
If you genuinely were, you wouldn't be trotting out that old chestnut to defend whatever you've cocked up this time.

chillidoggy

However, this concerns me:

boogieman said:

Nigella Lawson “loving” everything she prepares and cooks, and then giving that overused sideways, supposedly saucy, glance when she eats it.  

There is nothing negative that can be said against Nigella. Absolutely nothing.

There’s nothing that can be held against her. Well, maybe one thing...

scrumhalf

I increased my daily rate by £50/day when discussing some work with a client who kept on going on about "win-win" and "low-hanging fruit".

steveledzep

scrumhalf said:

I increased my daily rate by £50/day when discussing some work with a client who kept on going on about "win-win" and "low-hanging fruit".

Thought we'd done the thread about low hanging plums ?

BluesLover

People who use the phrase "school me" should also get their nuts bashed with a rusty car door.

crunchman

BluesLover said:

People who use the phrase "school me" should also get their nuts bashed with a rusty car door.

What happens if they are female?

Haych

Some words/phrases are irritating when overused but none more so than words that don't exist but which still get used, and more often than not by well educated people on the telly.

Words such as nuculer (no, it's nuclear), or secetary (you mean secretary), and pacific when they mean to say specific.  Huw Edwards is particularly guilty of all of these but it's certainly not limited to him, lots of people do it.

Oh, and the other on that really gets my boiler stoked, when people use of instead of have.  Could of, should of etc.

When it's overused it's annoying; when it's overused and just plain wrong it's unforgivable, especially from people who should know better.

jonnyburgo

"Going forward" every fucking email at work is about blah blah blah going forward, I'm really fucked off with it. What happened to good old "In future"? It's often used to soften the blow of a management bollocking ie "Going forward just do what I fucking asked you to do in the first place"

jonnyburgo

boogieman said:

chillidoggy said:

Jetfire said:

chillidoggy said:

“These toilets are regularly inspected by the management.”

Are they fuck.

I say "Are they fuck" all the time but as phrase, its a car crash.

I reckon 'fuck' should be exempt from any grammatical intervention. Equally as pleasing to my ear are - "The fuck they are", "For fuck's sake" or just a pared down, "Fuck off".

Fuck is such a perfect word, it deserves a bye in everything. I’m very fond of the minimist “fucksake” myself. 

I like a good "Get to fuck man" I say that a lot at work when reading emails.

chillidoggy

"Hit me up" is another piss-boiler for me. Makes me want to, well, hit them.

zepp76

Not a word but terms used by eBay motorcycle traders like:

 “comprehensive history file” or “comes with lots of paperwork”

 so you ask them something simple like, can you tell me when the last service was please?

 And they reply, I haven’t got that info, got some old MOT’s though. Give me a call on blah blah blah if you want to buy it, um no, fuck off!

crunchman

All the Americanisms that my daughters come out with.   A lot of the time it's pronunciation rather than the word itself.  I get things like albino with the i sounding like lino.

I threatened (only half jokingly) to ban YouTube channels made by Americans, and they showed me channels made by English people who use the same dodgy pronunciations.  Does my head in.

Rich210

Resilience 

scrumhalf

"at this moment in time" is a favourite? Why add "in time"? What else would a moment be in?

People who use "momentarily" when they mean "in a moment".

I get particularly irritated by people sending an email ti two people and instead if starting the message with "Dear X and Y" choose "Both". Scrotes. 

Cranky

Haych said:

Some words/phrases are irritating when overused but none more so than words that don't exist but which still get used, and more often than not by well educated people on the telly.

Words such as nuculer (no, it's nuclear), or secetary (you mean secretary), and pacific when they mean to say specific.  Huw Edwards is particularly guilty of all of these but it's certainly not limited to him, lots of people do it.

Oh, and the other on that really gets my boiler stoked, when people use of instead of have.  Could of, should of etc.

When it's overused it's annoying; when it's overused and just plain wrong it's unforgivable, especially from people who should know better.

I'd like to add "guestimate" to this.