Faddish phrases that annoy you.

[Monsieur Croche]

Iain is here (we're going to a football/soccer match. Moi?) and his answer is -

"Tell him I'll use my analogue digits to punch him in the face"

Tsk, tsk.  Really, old chap, I'm sure "Too clever by half" would have sufficed, at least, virtually ;-)

[North Star]

Iain is here (we're going to a football/soccer match. Moi?) and his answer is -

"Tell him I'll use my analogue digits to punch him in the face"

Tell him to bring the lens hood when he drops by. 

[NikF]

Tsk, tsk.  Really, old chap, I'm sure "Too clever by half" would have sufficed, at least, virtually ;-)

It's more a part of a running joke with my friend, regarding faces. In this instance it refers to 'ol North Star.

Tell him to bring the lens hood when he drops by. 

I had to stop for a moment there and think about that. Didn't Iain send it to you? I mean, like, almost two years ago? 
I don't want to take this thread off topic and so I'll PM you when I return. 

[Monsieur Croche]

"At the end of the day..."  mea culpa, but there 'tis.

[Jay F]

I loathe "Pro-active", "impact" used wrong. If a meteor is not involved, don't use it!. And... much worse, still, "impacted". Every time someone uses that, I want to show them the actual meaning of the word, fist to temple.

"Impact," the verb, was the first repurposed word to annoy me, back in the mid-70s. I was waitering while going to the School of Visual Arts, and members of my favorite table of suits would impact me horribly by using it as a verb a number of times each week. I got proactive, of course, and didn't say anything, as it might impact my tip. But fist to temple, yeah, that's what was going on inside my head.

And there is no situation I know of in which "active" wouldn't be an acceptable, if not completely perfect, substitute for "proactive" (though I'm certain someone will impact us all by going proactive and thinking of one).

[SurprisedByBeauty]

"Impact," the verb, was the first one to annoy me, back in the mid-70s. I was waitering while going to the School of Visual Arts, and members of my favorite table of suits would impact me horribly by using it as a verb a number of times each week. I got proactive, of course, and didn't say anything, as it might impact my tip. But fist to temple, yeah, that's what was going on inside my head.

And there is no situation I know of in which "active" wouldn't be a perfect substitute for "proactive" (though I'm certain someone will impact us all by going proactive and thinking of one).

This is casting the net a bit wider, now, but there are just horrible words in writing that should also be avoided like a cliché which are in turn to be avoided like the plague. Either because they are sentence-fabric softeners, lazy transitions, or grammatically incorrect... usually redundant like "pro-active":

Counter balance | Therefore | However | Almost | Irregardless

[Monsieur Croche]

This is casting the net a bit wider, now, but there are just horrible words in writing that should also be avoided like a cliché which are in turn to be avoided like the plague. Either because they are sentence-fabric softeners, lazy transitions, or grammatically incorrect... usually redundant like "pro-active":

Counter balance | Therefore | However | Almost | Irregardless

Irregardless ain't even an actual word, hah!

[Monsieur Croche]

"Reached a crescendo." ~ Someone really ought to inform the authors who use this phrase, or at least their editors, that it makes no real sense.

In far too many novels involving a composer, somewhere will be written,
"S/he was always searching for new chords."

Curtains vs. Drapes:
In real life and also in tons of fiction, people/characters "draw/drew the drapes."  More often than not, they are really closing (or shutting) the curtains. 
Curtains hang; Drapes drape.

[PerfectWagnerite]

"Queer" is very strange because here in the US, it's also a slur, but it is additionally the preferred word of academics - you can study queer theory and take queer literature classes and specialize in queer history. I don't know of many other words that have such a split in connotation depending on who says them.

Not sure whether it is a slur or not but I have never heard of homosexuals call themselves "queers".

Sory I can't help myself rememembering this quote:

Holy dogsh*t! Only steers and queers come from Texas!! And you don't much look like a steer to me so that kind of narrows it down.

I guess if it is good enough for the Marine Corp it is good enough for the academics.

[Ken B]

Not sure whether it is a slur or not but I have never heard of homosexuals call themselves "queers".

We're here
We're queer
Get used to it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_slogans

http://www.salon.com/1999/06/30/pride/

[André]

This thread seems to highlight a degree of disconnection between modern day usages and what-I-learned-the-hard-way-in-the 70s/80s.

Welcome to Modern Times ! 

The same phenomenon exists in the French, Italian, Spanish, German languages. I realize it's tough. Often times when I check on the net about a word, term or phrase that seems bezzzaar, it looks like the lores and mores have changed.

In French, I'd daresay 10% of nouns/verbs used today are new to what I learned at school. And maybe 50% of neologisms are carbon copies from the English.

May explain some faddisms, as words travel the blogosphere faster than you say Ouch ! As alt-rightists like to say: get used to it!

[vandermolen]

'He/she died on me'. As if the person did so deliberately to cause them the maximum inconvenience.

'Not a happy bunny'   

[Karl Henning]

'He/she died on me'. As if the person did so deliberately to cause them the maximum inconvenience.

'Not a happy bunny'   >

The best you can say of that is, grief for the deceased is not uppermost in the speaker's mind.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[vandermolen]

The best you can say of that is, grief for the deceased is not uppermost in the speaker's mind.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Yes, very true Karl.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Why with (so called) Atonal Compositional Practice (and serialism) do they call rows "Tone Rows" and not Atone Rows??

If that was a joke, you should atone for it! 

[SurprisedByBeauty]

It was mean't humorously but I still stand by it, there's a huge double standard behind the whole term "Atonal" that I despise enormously 

"Atonal" you don't like? I. jus't. can't! :-O

[Wendell_E]

there's a huge double standard behind the whole term "Atonal" that I despite enormously 

At least you're in good company, since Schoenberg was opposed to the term.

[Karl Henning]

The two terms are not in fact in opposition, not direct opposition, anyway.  Atonality indicates (rightly or wrongly  0:) ) an absence, not of tones, but of tonality.

Anyway, it's off-topic:  there is nothing faddish about atonality;  the word has been in currency for nearly a century.  You'll be complaining about the abbreviations 'phone and 'cello, next   

[ritter]

Good day, Karl!

A couple of questions to our American friends (I suppose thay are tangentailly related to this topic):

1) When did the use of the word "like" in, like  , every sentence, become so widespread? I went to school in the U.S. in the late 80s and I, like  , never heard it used in that way.

2) When did people start answering they are "good" when asked how they are? I remember the common usage was to reply one was "well" or "fine", but not "good" (which I must admit sounds, like  , awkawrd to me).

Thanks in advance, and regards.

[Karl Henning]

Good day, Karl!

A couple of questions to our American friends (I suppose thay are tangentailly related to this topic):

1) When did the use of the word "like" in, like  , every sentence, become so widespread? I went to school in the U.S. in the late 80s and I, like  , never heard it used in that way.

I think this was the butt of some joking even in the '60s, but it has surely spiked since.

2) When did people start answering they are "good" when asked how they are? I remember the common usage was to reply one was "well" or "fine", but not "good" (which I must admit sounds, like  , awkawrd to me).

Thanks in advance, and regards.

I'm not qualified to say just when it started, but I remember the very day that my 10^th-grade English teacher firmly taught us to avoid that barbarous colloquialism  0:)