Catchy words, why do they annoy me?
 

"Pimp your _______" (whatever, fill in the blank) What does this even mean, and why is it not considered a crass thing to say? It certainly sounds crass.

"Embattled" is another current one. Every news report of someone controversial starts with 'Embattled so-and-so..." And 'diva'. Everyone is a diva. Or a 'dude', and they're 'sweet'.

Then there's the phrase of the moment, the extremely annoying 'Perfect storm of _______" That one really gets on my nerves.

Last year, a couple of oft-heard catch words were 'overarching' and 'ramping up'. Before that it was 'Strongman", and 'war on _____(again, fill in the blank with terrorism, poverty, drugs, illiteracy, whatever).

Why do these words annoy me so badly? Is it because they are each heard multiple times during a single newscast? Or is it because I hear people using them in normal, every day conversation?

I suppose I have too much free time.

No...you are NOT alone. :)

As a commercial/business writer, one of the things I strive for daily is avoidance of cliches and trendy catchphrases. It's OK to use them sparingly, when humor or absolute certainty that it'll appeal to a specific audience is assured, but for many mediocre writers (and speakers) they're nothing more than crutches.

I get tired of hear WHAT EVER I hear my kids say it to each other when they dont want to listen. Husband says it when he was to annoy me,, he knows better.

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I don't like it when you say something some one does not agree with and the say;

" excuss me " Now I look at them and say " Why ...what did you do "

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There is this woman on the morning news who has this thing where see says

" Now To bring you up to speed " as if people are going slower, and no nothing about here subject but her.

Then she goes on to tell something that ain't nothing to start with, or something that happened the day before, as if everyone waited on her to wake up in the world.

bumpus
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What about the news people who tell you on TV that you must leave the area, or you will have no hope in hurricane or flood, and hear they are right where they tell you that if you stay you could be killed.

They stand right out in the storm and keep right on reporting and they do not leave the area they say is dangerous for everyone.

The Super Rambo News Reporter.

bumpus
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I dislike the word "simplistic".

And I strongly dislike the term "state-of-the-art"!

Why do they annoy you?

Maybe because they show how shallow/inarticulate some people really are - that they can't think to use any other words and have this need to be "in".

Just shows me where they are & I move on....... :)

bottom line is it all sucks.
I imagine those news reporters (I'm glad I don't watch t.v. news, so I may be not 'pimped' enough to know what the current 'war on' whatever is, and so forth and so on)...I'm thinking those reporters use street terms to get familiarity with their audience that end up using any of the current terminology until it's embattled with fatigue. Then, those old relegated catchy words are like tumbleweeds drifting in ghost towns looking for the perfect storm of allegiance that a group once used......sort of like being 'groovy' but not so much that it's outdated as it is taken over with the current 'new thang'. :rolleyes:

Maybe it's because you have a very busy mind, that seeks out rule and order inorder to feel that you are better prepare to deal with more important things in life? Certainly nothing to beat yourself up over, accept it, vent, move on.

Hugs,
Marlene

P.S. "accept it, vent, move on...." is not something I enjoy hearing I was being satirical.

Language is endlessly fascinating. How emotionally charged it is and how emotionally charged *we* get about its use is the subject of much discussion and writing.

I taught English and the various speech communication courses to high school students for fifteen years. I miss the discussion about how language works. :)

The media has done the English language a terrible disservice. The vocabulary of the average American has been reduced to buzz words and catch phrases.

Turn off the television! Read a book!

Ditto everything Rose said. Well, except for teaching English. I've only done that unofficially. :D

ROFL ---- here's one --- "been there, done that, bought the T-shirt."

Or...."that's just not how I roll."

There is a commercial on tv by Countrywide home loans that annoys me. lol

The guy is talking about a "Re-fi"...........why doesn't he just come out and say refinance? Is "Re-fi" supposed to appeal to the in crowd or something?

My DH just laughs at me every time the commercial comes on. LOL!

sounds like you all are easily annoyed :shrug:

"Meteoric rise" is one that annoys me. It gets used every once in a while even in media that should know better such as NPR.

.....Alan.

Can anyone under age 25 have a conversation without using the word (Like)!You know LIKE I am so sick of this word.

One that I find is getting beaten to death is having "issues". Nobody has problems any more. Everybody has issues. :rolleyes: At least until the next buzzword comes along they do. :baby04:

My Mom is a big fan of the Home and Garden network and usually has that on the tv when we come up. One time I counted 17 uses of the word "organic" within 10 minutes of show. And they were talking about home decorating! I believe they thought it was clever and original to substitute "organic" for "natural" or "earthy".

And yes, that kind of thing really hits my ear wrong. I notice but don't mind a bit when someone who has not had the benefit of much education misuses the English language. I actually find colloquial English fascinating and have often pondered the connections between the language of the original immigrants to a region and the unique turns of phrase that exist there today. For example, there were many Bavarian German settlers to our region, and I can now hear several interesting phrases that are awkward in English, but direct translations from German--from people who never spoke a word of German in their lives.

On the other hand, it does drive me crazy to hear someone misusing the English language in an attempt to show off or sound more impressive. Ramping things up really used to get on my nerves. And don't even get me started on how pathetic it sounds to hear someone or an advertiser using outdated slang in order to try to sound as if they were part of the "in" crowd.!

Oooh, I hate the word 'guesstimate'. It's redundant! A guess is the same thing as an estimate!!! Drives me nuts!!!

Okay, thanks for listening...

Guess we all have favorite 'hates'. THis may be just in the corproate world, but I got soooo sick of hearing: "we need to 'drill down' & find the cause" or: "he has too much on his plate".

Yes, & I like don't ever want to like hear people say 'like' anymore!

Patty

How about the word troops when referring to a solder?
This one drives me nuts every time I hear it.

Hey.

If I wasn't cool, hearing the word "exactly" fifty times in a conversation would bother me;-)

RF

LOL. Maybe it's just that your intelligence level is above the norm.

A term that's recently been bothering me is "gang banger". I thought it meant a group of people doing something unspeakable to an unwilling participant. Recently I've been hearing (on tv) someone referring to a person saying "s/he's a gang banger". What?!?

This isn't even a term I'd be willing to say out loud to anyone so why is it all of the sudden okay to use freely? (Maybe I just hang out with the right people, ROFL.)

I am easily annoyed by buzzwords, cliches and trendy expressions. Trying to communicate using them is like a surgeon trying to perform brain surgery with a butter knife.

I also find that incorrect use of words irritates me. Why is it, for example, that so many people no longer differentiate between "there" (in that place), "their" (belonging to them) and "they're" (they are)?

I blame the media and the education system about equally. I do not blame the individual teachers. Often their hands are tied by the dictates of the government departments responsible for education. Here in Ontario about twenty years ago, the educational trend was towards something called "whole language". It resulted in teachers no longer being permitted to teach the basics of formal grammar. They could give spot correction but were forbidden to explain the underlying principles. Children were encouraged to express themselves in writing using language any way they liked. Somehow they were expected to develop for themselves the desire correct grammar, diction and spelling. It didn't happen.

Language usage is a different process from creative writing. The one is a tool to enhance the other. It would be sad to inhibit the first flush of inspiration in a child's story or essay. It is sadder still to deny that child the opportunity to acquire the fundamental language skills that make self-expression effective.

Here's a few examples of correct usage of commonly comfused words:

there/their/they're
There is the girl who won the spelling bee.
The children put on their coats and went out to the schoolyard for recess.
They're the ones who dropped their potato chip bags there.
I'm sure they're on their way and will get there soon.

your/you're/yore
Your mother called today.
You're the one she wanted to talk to.
In days of yore, people wore powdered wigs.

yolk/yoke
The yolk of the egg is bright yellow.
The man used a yoke to carry the milk buckets.

you/ewe
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep. Have you seen her ewe?

accept/except
All the children were accepted into the club, except for little Johnny.

This issue matters to me. I find that my own eye is no longer as sharp for errors as it used to be. I am so accustomed to seeing and hearing the incorrect and hackneyed use of language that my own skills are compromised. Sometimes when read over one of my posts a few days later, I cringe to see errors in it that I once would not have made. I have been very careful while composing this reply and taken far too long doing it. I am a writer and I need my scalpel. :hobbyhors

"Well, ewe new what I meant, so whatsit matter?" :rolleyes:

All I can say is that if your knot aware of the difference, the yoke is on ewe! :p

I guess I'm not alone in being annoyed by catch words and phrases! I think what I find annoying is that they are used by media or people trying to appear hip, trendy, and 'cutting edge' (ugh, there's another one). Sort of the verbal equivalent of the 65 year old woman with the clothing and hairstyle currently popular among teens and those in their early 20's (or should that be '20-somethings'?)

And the hand gestures, oh God dont' even get me started on the little hand gestures the news anchors use. When speaking without gesturing, they make a little triangle with their index fingers and thumbs at wasit level, or they hold the pinky finger of one hand with the index finger and thumb of the other. I suppose that's the nonverbal equivalent of catch phrases.

I NEED TO STOP WATCHING THE NEWS! I do much better when I only listen to it. Gosh, I need a life!

And I agree that trendy catch phrases and incorrect usage of English has dumbed down (oops, pardon that one) society at large. On the news, it's now common for the anchors or reporters to say 'the guy' instead of 'the suspect' or 'the man'. The GUY? Sounds terribly unprofessional if you ask me.

Read something a while back that showed how people's vocabularies are shrinking because words that were once common (and within my lifetime, not necessarily words that were used 100 or more years ago) are no longer being used, or have been given such negative connotations that they are practically forbidden. The word 'niggardly' caught quite a bit of attention a few years ago, and it turned out a lot of people didn't even know the definition of the word, just that it sounded like a racial slur. 'Ostensibly', 'confounded', 'trousers' and 'fraught' are also examples.

Pre-

AAACK! Pre-purchasing tickets to an event?? As if someone would be stupid enough to post-purchase them?

Makes me nauseous! I also hate when the letters are placed backwards or upside down on signs. If they can't spell burger, do I really want that person making my change?

They annoy you because it doesn't take much thought, original thought, to spit these out. I usually also dislike the "saying du jour".

Pat

Never mind your change! Do you really want that person to be making your burger?

One the other hand...

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away... (around 1990, when I was recently divorced) I started frequenting a sports bar where "the older crowd" in my town hung out. (Older crowd = over 30. I was crowding 40 at the time.) I found that my natural reserve, my university education and my precise speech made it difficult to communicate with other people at first. As I relaxed and learned to speak more like the others, ("Howzit goin'?" instead of "How are you this evening?") I found other people relaxing and only then was I able to get into good conversations with people. And so I learned that there is a lot more to communication than using good English. Good communication is a two-way street and requires flexibility, understanding and acceptance.

YAY!!

Patty

How about a "pre-owned" car instead of a used car. I can't remember if it was a BMW commercial or one for Lexis, but they called it "previously enjoyed". Cracked me up.

You folks have come up with some good ones. I've always found "virtually" annoying, like in "virtually everyone"--does that mean everyone, or almost everyone? Then the latest is "my bad"---if I hear that again, I'll virtually scream my head off!

OH the "my Bad" thing bugs me, but nothing will ever bug me as much as the "Dat's DA BOMB" craze years ago... along with the "Sha-zizzle" garbage.

Still understanding why English isn't good enough the way it is without..adding to it.

And now apparently it's grammatically correct to say "Him and ME" instead of "Him and I" - DH and I can't get over that!

I absolutely despise the phrase "with all due respect." It always precedes something disrespectful and is so over used it is meaningless.

Another one that makes me grit my teeth is "buzzword." No offence to those who have used it here. I did a bit of PR writing a long time ago and someone I worked for used this until I couldn't stand it!

freelove

Snugglebunny beat me to it. "My bad". I hate that phrase. If a three year old said it ( and that's what it sounds like) you would correct him very quickly.

Another one I hate is when people end a note or blog post with "Peace Out"

What the heck is that supposed to mean!

Pauline

My current annoyance is the new commercials ' DUH" event! Nothing like teaching our children that, that is an appropriate word!

As far as commercials go, I thought being Safe was a preventative against an accident. I put the SafeAuto commercial on mute as soon as it begins. I recognize it by the same dumb catchy sentences! The basic assumption is that everyone is going to get a ticket for driving without a license until SafeAuto saves the day!! How stupid do they think we are! :flame:

(I wouldn't mind it if they would vary the audience that they were targeting, but it never changes!) So to keep my cool, I try not to even hear it! LOL

For the most part, commercials don't really evoke any emotion in me, except now and then I will comment that that was a really good and convincing commercial. Not sure why SafeAuto can get my goat and has from the first one I've viewed. Only thing I can come up with is that they are playing with people's emotions to get the sale. :shrug:

If you are saying: "He & I went to the store", then its 'he & I'. If you say: "Give it to him & me" then its 'him & me'. 1st example is used as the subject of the sentence, 2nd is object of the preposition 'to'. Its never right to say 'him & I'.

Patty :)

I hate it when people grab the expressions that are "like, sooo last week" and use them and then look as though they think they're clever. My MIL still makes a statement then goes "NOT!" and looks like she thinks she's the cutest person on the planet. She also used to say "How special" and then crack up at her brilliance.

There are buzz terms at work that I am very, very sick of, such as:

He really hit the cover off the ball on that one
I don't have the bandwidth to get that done
We have the process done so "that's goodness"
Do you have the cycles to work on this?
Yeah, this is just going to be a real cluster... oh never mind, can't say that one ;-)

I am sooo tired of "dude" - now people say it to girls. HATE it when people say "beeotch".

And I extra loathe it when people up talk? Like, ya know, they end every statement so that it sounds like a question?

I am so glad that no one mentioned "cool". I don 't say it as much as I used to but that is my word that I lump a lot of meanings and expressions and emotions into--- one simple word---"cool" :)

Of course, many of us know where I got it from... so I guess your generation may determine your particular preferences. :cool:

"Cool" is timeless.

So is "way cool" :)

Patty