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Words and Phrases that really annoy

Okay that would bug me.
Gee I'm going to sound like a grumpy old man here but I sort of wish kids these days still had some respect, for anyone at all, not just their elders. And this is coming from one who is still young enough to be referred to by middle aged people as one of the "kids these days". But, I've always been old fashioned like that, and that's why I shave with vintage razors. Now get off my lawn. :biggrin1:

My personal pet peeves are the people who refer to a Cummins turbo diesel engine as a "Cummings," and of course all the other classics like "could care less" and "irregardless".
It would bug me if it wasn't loving. The kid loves us (and the feeling is mutual) and after his covid regression he's getting back to being a well behaved 8 year old.
 
"irregardless".
I read that "irregardless" is now a dictionary word, so a proper word, albiet non-standard, or at least I think non-standard. I do not love that it is either. I am with Fowler in not liking that a word that is not better than another word starts to substitute for a perfectly good word, so that there are two words with the same meaning. Or when meaning starts to drift causing ambiguity, or both happen, as in the word "disinterested," which started out meaning unbiased, but now has come to mean "uninterested" depending on context, I suppose.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
I read that "irregardless" is now a dictionary word, so a proper word, albiet non-standard, or at least I think non-standard. I do not love that it is either. I am with Fowler in not liking that a word that is not better than another word starts to substitute for a perfectly good word, so that there are two words with the same meaning. Or when meaning starts to drift causing ambiguity, or both happen, as in the word "disinterested," which started out meaning unbiased, but now has come to mean "uninterested" depending on context, I suppose.
I'm with you guys. I have read that literally now has a definition meaning emphasis on a phrase, such as "He literally missed it by a mile".
Another irritation is just lazy pronunciation such as
I work at a "New Cue Lar" power plant.
I used a thermometer to take his "Temper Churr".
He had last rites because he's "Cath Lick".
Would I go there again? "Probb Lee".
I returned my book to the "Lye Bree" (or even worse - "Lye Berry".
There's a bunch, and I hate every one of them.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
President Carter was the only public official who could pronounce Nuclear correctly,
as far as I know.
George W. Bush famously mispronounced nuclear, but he wasn't the first US president to do so; Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Dwight D. Eisenhower also succumbed to the perils of this specific example of metathesis.

Under "Notable users"
 
Lookit .. Heard it today in a store. The mother told her little girl to lookit when they were in the coffee aisle. She said, “Lookit, they have the coffee that daddy likes” Lookit is actually -Look at it… shortened.
 
I'm with you guys. I have read that literally now has a definition meaning emphasis on a phrase, such as "He literally missed it by a mile".
Another irritation is just lazy pronunciation such as
I work at a "New Cue Lar" power plant.
I used a thermometer to take his "Temper Churr".
He had last rites because he's "Cath Lick".
Would I go there again? "Probb Lee".
I returned my book to the "Lye Bree" (or even worse - "Lye Berry".
There's a bunch, and I hate every one of them.
I am not sure I pronounce "nuclear" correctly! To the point that I avoid using the word. For a long time I mispronounced "pen" as "pin." My New England wife cured me of that. I am not sure I do not slip sometimes on the pronunciation of "theater." Or "poem." I blame my Mother's Appalachian upbringing.

Some of these are regional and/or cultural things. I do not get "lye berry" either, but that is the way some folks were raised to say it. "Burf day" is another that seems universal among certain cultures, so I do not criticize it.

<I have read that literally now has a definition meaning emphasis on a phrase, such as "He literally missed it by a mile".>

Say it ain't so, Phil! Say it ain't so! A shanda for all English speakers! I strenuously object to this one. To take a word with a clear cut, usually meaning, and define it so that the definition includes the opposite and thus create ambiguity. Although I admit that in current usage "literally" has already become ambiguous.

I do not really feel all that aggressive about this, but some would criticize foreign born residents of the US for not learning English. One might suggest that some US born English speaking residents likewise put some time into learning the language! Again, I am not knocking a cultural or regional thing, and I leave to youth the ways and manners of youth speak. I realize that part of the idea of youth speak is to confuse and even annoy me! And language does have to evolve.
 
I guess we each have our own sensitivities. As I mentioned before, this modern, arguably millennial, use of "glottal stops in place of “t’s,”" continues to sound terrible/uneducated to me. "im por int," "did int," etc. I do understand that this sort of comes with the package for certain Brit accents. But I do not see that it is appropriate for US newscasters to adopt it, as they have.
 
George W. Bush famously mispronounced nuclear, but he wasn't the first US president to do so; Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Dwight D. Eisenhower also succumbed to the perils of this specific example of metathesis.

Under "Notable users"

I remember Carter pronouncing it correctly.
It was such a rare thing to hear.
I remember thinking at the time,
that it was probably because he had been an officer in the nuclear navy.
 
I remember Carter pronouncing it correctly.
It was such a rare thing to hear.
I remember thinking at the time,
that it was probably because he had been an officer in the nuclear navy.

Carter left out the sound of the letter 'L',
but he got all of the rest of it right.

It was really much closer to being correct, than it was to sounding like
New Que ler.


At least his pronunciation rhymed with Nuclear.
 
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Uptalk-A manner of speaking in which declarative sentences are spoken with rising intonation at the end, as if they were questions.

I noticed this during meetings and conference calls. It was typically a younger staff member, more often than not female. I told my wife and she mentioned that mentors in her company would encourage younger women to record themselves and listen. Then practice not speaking in that manner.
 
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I guess we each have our own sensitivities. As I mentioned before, this modern, arguably millennial, use of "glottal stops in place of “t’s,”" continues to sound terrible/uneducated to me. "im por int," "did int," etc. I do understand that this sort of comes with the package for certain Brit accents. But I do not see that it is appropriate for US newscasters to adopt it, as they have.

I hear it all the time … Ohhhh nooo you did-int!!! Sometimes I feel like we are drifting into the movie Idiocracy: The English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valleygirl, inner-city slang and various grunts.
 
I hear it all the time … Ohhhh nooo you did-int!!! Sometimes I feel like we are drifting into the movie Idiocracy: The English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valleygirl, inner-city slang and various grunts.
One that I hear is words like im-POR-ant for important, or KAW-uhn for cotton.
 
I have two pet peeves. The first is when I say thank you to a service provider and they say "no problem" - of course its is no problem - I am paying you!!! How could that be a problem!!!

The other is when you call a professional's phone and their message says blah blah blah...I will call you back at my earliest convenience. I think they probably do not understand what they are saying. What they mean (I imagine) is that they will call back at their earliest opportunity. Call me the voicemail police, but I think they would want to make it sound like your call is important, not that I will call you back when it is convenient for me (like when I do not have anything better to do). I know that they do not know what they are saying but it sounds like they are either of low intelligence or that they have a pretty casual attitude towards your call (either is not an impression I think someone would want to make)...End of rant!!! Thank you for listening!!!
 
I do not really feel all that aggressive about this, but some would criticize foreign born residents of the US for not learning English. One might suggest that some US born English speaking residents likewise put some time into learning the language! Again, I am not knocking a cultural or regional thing, and I leave to youth the ways and manners of youth speak. I realize that part of the idea of youth speak is to confuse and even annoy me! And language does have to evolve.
Well said! I was a foreign born Canadian resident for many years, teaching university students in Canada to write papers, in English. Mostly, my focus was content, but form (English language) often became a subject of commentary too. This proved to be a delicate exercise of diplomacy, as many students did not take it lightly when a "non native" speaker of English dared to comment on their English exposition.
The more general point here is that language is fundamentally social, and so recalling the title of this thread, "words and phrases that annoy", it should come as no surprise that the annoyance is partly socially conditioned. For my part, a favourite perversion is when "native speakers" lecture me on the alleged correctness of their chosen idiom, and/or the alleged incorrectness of mine. The English language is particularly interesting in this regard, as a primary global lingua franca these days. Plenty of occasion for annoyance, and certainly reflection.
 
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A lot of these are results of extreme regional accents, which I personally believe should be referred to as dialects. 😂 Here is an example of one:
Sure they're technically reading the same words but when the pronunciation differs that vastly from the original, is it really the same word any more? Just something I find interesting. 😄
 
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