Sayings and Phrases that annoy you

[EEVILMURRAY]

"Stunning".

 

---

Don't forget Essential.

• "Bruv"
  
• "Bare"
  
• "Sick"
  
• "Blood"
  

 

"Yeah Bruv, it was bear good." "Sick Blood"

All of these, it doesn't help with my brother and all of his makes using them. Although I think they've stop using "blud"

 

"Brraaap!" is one of my hates, especially when it's accompanied by the Ali G wrist flick. No meaning whatsoever, plus it also reminds me of my inability to roll my R's.

[Dan_Dare]

When my mother used to say to me as a kid when I was genuinely full from dinner "Don't waste you're food, there's people in the world that are starving right now".

 

Cant believe I wasn't smart enough to respond I'd feel too guilty to eat the rest and wish to donate it. Biggest guilt inducing saying ever, like you could do fuck all about it. Don't eat it = Wasteful, inconsiderate. Eat it = Inconsiderate.

 

I shit you not my mum used to tell us this and threaten to have us pipe fed in the hospital if we didn't finish our dinner.

 

In fairness, it worked. I'll eat anything.

[Coolness Bears]

This a conversation I had the other day at dinner:

 

Mum: When I was growing up we were made to eat everything on the plate. When have you ever caught me leaving anything?

 

Me: You left me alone for 3 hours on my last day of primary school...

 

YOU GOT TAKEN DOWN!

 

Dad: At least she didn't leave you on a plate.

 

His comment made me laugh.

[Daft]

The use of "banter" as a adjective, as in "it was banter".

 

I use 'banter'. Something I picked up in boarding school. I think it's a great word.

 

Then again, we had this thing where mispronounced words meant the opposite so with 'banter' you also got 'bunter', which meant shit banter. Then my own little addition, 'crunter' - chronic banter.

[chairdriver]

The use of "banter" as a adjective, as in "it was banter".

 

Isn't that a noun in that case...?

[MoogleViper]

Isn't that a noun in that case...?

 

No as it's describing something. e.g. yesterday was banter. Although fish you didn't use a great example.

[chairdriver]

No as it's describing something. e.g. yesterday was banter. Although fish you didn't use a great example.

 

Oh, I see.

 

If only English were an inflected language, we wouldn't have these problems!

[Raining_again]

When my mother used to say to me as a kid when I was genuinely full from dinner "Don't waste you're food, there's people in the world that are starving right now".

 

Cant believe I wasn't smart enough to respond I'd feel too guilty to eat the rest and wish to donate it. Biggest guilt inducing saying ever, like you could do fuck all about it. Don't eat it = Wasteful, inconsiderate. Eat it = Inconsiderate.

 

And that is a very big reason why there are so many obese children, in this and the rest of all the "richer" countries (america, aussie, uk etc)

[Supergrunch]

The totally nonsensical twisting of "Couldn't care less" into "Could care less", without the meaning changing with it.

 

It's unacceptable.

How do you know "could care less" isn't sarcastic? It's probably used that way in some cases, and Goafers example definitely shows evidence of an understanding of the composite meaning of the phrase - how can it have a surface meaning anything other than "I care very little"?:

That annoys me too. Makes no sense. I heard someone say "I could care less, but I'd have to be asleep" once.

However, it's probably also the case that people have started to use this new form as an unanalysed whole, without thinking about the composite meaning, and I guess it's up to you whether or not to find that annoying. Similar things happen with lots of idioms - look at how " he kicked the bucket" is interpreted as "he died", and not broken down any further, as (partly) evidenced by the fact that you can't passivise it - "the bucket was kicked by him" only makes sense non-idiomatically.

"Could of" and "Would of". Even more so when people actually say it like that.

As you've alluded to, this started out as something written, rather than spoken at all, and so it was more a case of bad spelling than anything else. I suppose it's a bit up for debate as to whether this has ended up actually influencing pronunciation, as it might be that the "of" pronunciation is just a dialectal form of the "'ve" clitic. Either way, I'm pretty sure it remains the same syntactically, with the auxiliary verb having a pronunciation that happens to be the same as a preposition.

the word "random".

In popular usage? This is just weird, as it's really hard to define exactly what it means. It's definitely related to but very much distinct from the mathematical sense of the word.

Well most of the stuff that comes out of there is absolute tripe. I hate their inherent use of double negatives.

That's by no means specific to American dialects, or even the English language in general. Some languages, such as French, exhibit what's called "negative concord" - in "Je ne suis pas" ("I am not") both "ne" and "pas" are negative, and (in formal speech), obligatory, yet nobody complains there. English, by contrast, is what's called "semi-negative concord", in that negative concord is possible to an extent in some dialects. English and French are considered to be like this because they're both at different stages in a general process of language change called Jespersen's cycle, and French is further on, so like it or not, English is probably going to become fully negative concord in the future.

Double negatives are amazing when used properly. So are tautologies.

 

When people unnecessarily use the word 'literally'.

Loads of common sayings are tautologies, like "boys will be boys", with information being added pragmatically. A great example of this is "people who like this sort of thing will find this is the sort of thing they like".

 

And in the case of "literally", I guess it's becoming semantically bleached and turning into a more functionalish intensifier.

The use of "banter" as a adjective, as in "it was banter".

Isn't that a noun in that case...?

Like Chair says, with the sentence you give, you can't rule out "banter" being treated as a determiner-less noun, c.f. with "It was London."

No as it's describing something. e.g. yesterday was banter. Although fish you didn't use a great example.

Even in this case it could still arguably be a noun - c.f. with "Are we going to London today?" "No, yesterday was London." Admittedly, however, it seems much more likely that it's just a straightforward adjective. But then people verb nouns all the time, so why shouldn't they make them adjective? (this of course works better when there isn't a convenient standard adjectival form, such as... "adjectival" in this case )

If only English were an inflected language, we wouldn't have these problems!

Well, it might make things clearer in some cases, but English does have a little bit of inflection. Furthermore, it overtly exhibits derivation (e.g. the conversion of a word into a different grammatical class, such as from noun to verb) a lot more often, as in the case of "adjectival" above. My intuitions suggest that to adjectivise (the -ise suffix indicating verbing (here a null derivaiton affix, but the -ing inflection demonstrating the new class)) "banter" I'd use the suffix "-ous" (banterous), but it seems that people are happy to use a null suffix to indicate the derivation too. As in the case of verbing!

Edited March 26, 2010 by Supergrunch

[Dan_Dare]

the problem with 'random' nowadays grunch is that it's...wildly misused. It's used like 'odd' should be, to describe events that are clearly not 'random' in any sense of the word.

 

I'm with J-Dizzle. It's goddamn infuriating.

[Charlie]

The classic footballer lines...

"At the end of the day"

"like the gaffer says"

"110%"

 

And The Apprentice one

"I'll put my hands up"

[Aimless]

"Brraaap!" is one of my hates, especially when it's accompanied by the Ali G wrist flick. No meaning whatsoever, plus it also reminds me of my inability to roll my R's.

I believe the sound, and accompanying gesture, is meant to signify the use of a firearm in a limp-wristed, gangster style.

 

Gun crime. It's great.

 

Anyway, I've always resented, "Don't be cheeky!" It essentially translates to, "I'm older than you, you should show me respect at all times even though I show you none." It can also stand in for, "I don't understand what you just said, so I'm going to go ahead and get annoyed about it."

[Nolan]

Leave it to supergrunch to come in here and rationalize our annoyances.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Pretty much anything facbeook kids use to describe their night.

 

"Uh-oh, such a Messy night!! So much banter though! Woooooooooo!!! Love my giiirrrrllliess!!"

 

I generally dislike use of lengethened words online also.

 

Anyway, IRL my vocab is comprised of about 60% stupid sayings and crap catchphrases so I can't really complain. Natch.

 

I fucking hate the word "banter." I used to work with a guy who would describe every night out as "epic banter!" Pissed me right off.

 

Charlie, those footballer lines you mentioned also grate my cheese, too. I loathe the phrase "six of one, half a dozen of the other." Or, "swings and roundabouts." Grrr.

 

Another personal hate is how everything suddenly becomes "epic." No. Certain things are epic. That brilliant Tennis match between Nadal and Federer at Wimbledon 2008 was epic. The Lord of the Rings films are deserving of that word. But, I hate how the term is overused.

 

Finally, I get annoyed when celebrities (or anyone for that matter) overuse the words "obviously" and "like" or "totally" during interviews. Mark "Obviously" Hughes, I'm looking at you.

[Dyson]

"Half-chance". SERIOUSLY THIS ISN'T EVEN POSSIBLE YOU EITHER HAVE A CHANCE OR DON'T SO STOP FUCKING SAYING IT RAAARRGGHH

 

(am I right mr grunch?)

[Dan_Dare]

on football clichés:

 

I kind of enjoy them. They're so completely over baked at this point that the only possible use for them is in self parody and satire- which I indulge in when people who actually follow football start talking in tongues around me. I just whip out a few oldies and pepper the conversation untill they catch on.

[dwarf]

"Epic" & "Fail" are almost always used in a non-deserving situation, due to their spammable nature.

 

The examples below can be extremely annoying sometimes:

"I'm not gonna lie"

"Fair play" or "Fair enough"

"To be honest"

 

And the worst thing is that I use them myself.

 

There are so many shit phrases around these days, I should probably write them down whenever I encounter one. The newest one being the aforementioned 'banter', or 'bants/bantz' or whatever idiots call it. The word used to be good, it's probably Dave's fault, seeing as he's the home of the witty version of it (supposedly).

 

Edit: I agree with those football sayings. What gets me is this kind of situation though:

Interviewer: Well done Wayne, great game out there today, grabbing all 14 of those stunning goals, you must feel extremely pleased with your performance

Rooney: Erm yeah, erm. What I think is most important is that we got the 3 points

 

Bullshit. You scored 14 goals, only people that really want to come off as modest bellends would say that. I knew If I'd have scored 14 goals I would have just said that I was awesome and that the reason behind the victory wasn't because of the team performance, but in fact it was just me.

Edited March 27, 2010 by dwarf

[Dan_Dare]

'to be fair' makes me want to stab a bitch.

[Fierce_LiNk]

on football clichés:

 

I kind of enjoy them. They're so completely over baked at this point that the only possible use for them is in self parody and satire- which I indulge in when people who actually follow football start talking in tongues around me. I just whip out a few oldies and pepper the conversation untill they catch on.

 

When used in parody or satire, I can deal with them. But, watching a game and hearing these phrases often does kill my erection. Taking the piss with them is fine, though.

[Cube]

'to be fair' makes me want to stab a bitch.

 

Erm....never speak to me as it will annoy you. Although, to be fair, I don't really know why I say it as every sentence I use it in would have exactly the same meaning without it.

 

"In my opinion" is another one. Even worse is when people complain that others don't say it.

[dwarf]

'to be fair' makes me want to stab a bitch.

 

Damn that was the one I was thinking of. I almost typed it to be fair.

 

And true Cube. IMO is one of the crappest things to grace this earth.

 

'To be fair' is much worse though because people usually use it at the start of the sentence before they think about what they're saying.

[Dan_Dare]

It's when they're used as justification for a statement, like some kind of apology.

 

textbook example is 'that's pretty good to be fair'

 

Don't apologies for an opinion. State what you feel to be true and the very fact that you said it denotes opinion.

[dwarf]

Yeah there's that, and it is in a way like they are conceding defeat in saying something else is good.

 

'To be fair that was awesome'. No.

[Fierce_LiNk]

To be fair is ok, if it's used about once a month or something. But, when it's used every ten minutes, then the stabbing is justified.

 

OH! I've got another one, but it's different. When people give kisses in text messages or facebook messages by the hundreds. "I LUV U BABY! xxxx xxx xx x x x x xxx xxx xxx xx x x x x x x x xxxxxxxxxx x x xx xxxxx"

 

Stick to the fucking code

 

The Code:

 

One Kiss for a male friend or a female who you are not entirely friends with. Somebody you walk past and say hi, for example, but never properly speak to them or know much about them.

 

Two Kisses for good friends. People you trust, are close to, etc. Two kisses can only be used with a guy friend if there is a man crush involved.

 

Three Kisses for the person that you love. At a push, this can be used for your best friend. Use sparingly if that is the case.

 

NO MORE. There is none of this 4 or 5 or five hundred kisses bullshit.

[dwarf]

On Facebook I'm not a great lover of the :L or (Y) being used when they don't even work as emoticons.

 

What is detestable is the 'ahahahaaahahahaaaahahahaha' thing people do. When did it start with an 'a' anyway?