Phrases that Currently Get Up Your Nose

[izzarina]

"For reals?"???? This needs to be nipped in the bud.
Don't even come near me with that!!!!!

Ha. Just used it over at TEH BOARD, and, moreover, I spelled it "for realz".

I am, like, so being with it. You know?

I don't know. I've never even heard the expression until this thread. Does that mean that I'm, like, so NOT being with it? Is "hip" a cool word now? If it is, I'm so, like, not hip

[Rod Sprague]

One pseudo-intellectual word that really bothers me is devolution. Evolution is like entropy; it only goes forward. Describing biological evolution as devolution is putting a value judgment on something you are supposed to be viewing with scientific objectivity. If something is degenerating, just say it is degenerating. The word was the byproduct of word play by the rock group Devo. The word really doesn’t fit into well thought out rules for constructing new words.

[kkrell]

"Grow your business"

[MTGuru]

One pseudo-intellectual word that really bothers me is devolution. Evolution is like entropy; it only goes forward. Describing biological evolution as devolution is putting a value judgment on something you are supposed to be viewing with scientific objectivity. If something is degenerating, just say it is degenerating. The word was the byproduct of word play by the rock group Devo. The word really doesn’t fit into well thought out rules for constructing new words.

In the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest citation of "devolution" in the sense of a change over time from a higher to lower state dates to 1630. Which predates Jocko Homo by, er, a couple of years. So it's not only annoying, it's old and annoying -- kind of like me.

But you may be right about the anti-Darwininian coinage. Technically, evolution means changing from something, so the opposite might be advolution, changing towards something. In either case, only the point of view is implied, not better or worse. The implied sense of progress is a holdover from Victorian mentality. To the extent that "devolution" spoofs that, I think it's kind of funny. Heck, I thought Devo was kind of funny, too.

[Wombat]

"That's so gay." (In using the word "gay" to mean something stupid, horrible, laughable, obscene.)

"That's retarded." (In using the word "retarded" in much the same way.)

Yes, I am quite tired of both of those, and I straighten out anyone foolish enough to say either in front of me.

Whenever I hear either one, I also speak up and my friends accuse me of being a "grammar Nazi," even though that's not a matter of grammar at all.

You're right. It has nothing to do with grammar.

I think you might be fighting a losing battle with this one though. I think this use of 'gay' is driven by school kids in which case, if it's widespread, it's time to give up the word and find another. I don't think it's happened in Australia yet but I don't have much contact with school children. I'm surprised and pleased that 'gay' did the job it was designed to do for so long.

Finding a slang word for 'homosexual' that wasn't negatively emotively loaded was never going to rid the world of bigotry. But it enabled a lot of people to get across more positive attitudes for maybe 35 years and that is very good going. A couple of days ago a radio host who is openly gay was asked if he was going camping over Easter and he joked that he'd be camping it up quite a bit. 40 years ago, nobody would have said that, although one or two entertainers dropped outrageously heavy hints for anybody in tune enough to know what they were implying. There must be some other word just waiting in the wings for the chance to replace 'gay' as an emotively neutral term.

[Whistlin'Dixie]

"Grow your business"

Ha! Yeah, that one earns my amusement!

M

[hyldemoer]

One pseudo-intellectual word that really bothers me is devolution. Evolution is like entropy; it only goes forward. Describing biological evolution as devolution is putting a value judgment on something you are supposed to be viewing with scientific objectivity. If something is degenerating, just say it is degenerating. The word was the byproduct of word play by the rock group Devo. The word really doesn’t fit into well thought out rules for constructing new words.

Wait just a darn minute!
You're telling me there is no word to explain my older brother and his family?

[Lambchop]

Well, where I work, the ex-supervisor -- yes, that's right, and isn't it nice? -- was always sniping that "you need to get on the same page as the rest of us." Not realizing that her hymn book was 10 years out of date.

Now we're left with a disaffected coworker who greatly resents being assigned work she cannot accomplish by clawing her way over others, and, since clawing is her only skill in life and the new manager fails to appreciate it, now finds she has no skills to use in completing any assigned tasks, and so spends most of her time on the telephone ventilating to one crony after the other.

Such conversations begin with a burbly, googly "'Lo? Lo?" by way of greeting, and rapidly devolve into a bitch session about whatever the indignities of the current project are. "So, then he wants me to ____. OooKAY? And then I'm supposed to _____. 'KAY? Like I have time for this? 'KAY? What's with this? 'KAY?"

"I mean, LOOK at this! Numbers. 'KAY? It's nothing but numbers. 'KAY? What's with this happiness?"

Anything complicated is "this happiness." All her cronies are using it. The entire lot of them.

I swear to you, she went to a client with statistics and described them, with an arm wave, as "all this . . . this . . . happiness."

[hyldemoer]

"Hearings" referring to those who can hear, that is a new one to me, but it does seem strange usage. Would one accept calling a deaf person Deafings?

A Deaf (in Deaf culture) is a person who is a member of Deaf culture (They, the Deaf, sign it Deaf World). Just being deafened doesn't qualify a person to be in Deaf culture. There are specific deaf cultural practices that members of that culture observe.

A Hearing is the polite sign for a person who can hear (=a member of the Hearing culture).

A derogatory name for a person who can hear is to call them a "Talky".

To insult a person in Deaf culture one might tell a fellow Deaf person that they "think like a Talky" which is a referrence to the notion in Deaf World is understood that people who can hear are usually pushy, rude and insensitive.

[hyldemoer]

So I was like For Reals? and then he was like Totally! .... and then we were like Dude! and then he was like I Know! and then I was like Sweeeet.

Even worse when accompanied by 'goes' for 'says.'

So I was like For Reals? And then he goes like Totally!.... and then we go like Dude! and then I was like Sweeeeet.

I've heard that using the word "goes" when meaning "says" comes out of interpreting the rules of a language that isn't English when using English.
I don't recall what that other language is.

A similar thing happens down in Louisiana when people translate Cajun French into English or sometimes they don't personally know Cajun French but grew up with older family who did.
Instead of saying they're going to do the grocery shopping
they'll say (in English) that they're going to make grocery shopping or make groceries.
It makes sense if you understand how they use the verb "faire" in French.

[Random notes]

IRREGARDLESS!!!

When I was a kid, back about 4 decades ago, my father used this word without thinking about it until I corrected him once and he realized that it really irritated the cr*p out of me. He would then use it regularly until I became so inured that I could hear it without puffs of steam coming out of my ears.

BUT THEN...

Someone used it at work recently so I corrected him and we went to an on-line dictionary and LO and BEHOLD, in a pathetic capitulation to the insidious forces of IGNORANCE and GRAMMATICAL THUGGERY we discovered that this meaningless construction, this EXEMPLAR of LINGUISTIC DEVOLUTION, is now considered ACCEPTABLE (albeit nonstandard) USAGE.

I was stunned, nonplussed, discouraged and deflated, and have come finally to accept that civilization has no future.

Roger

[peeplj]

And I really hate it when people use inflection to make every thing they say sound like a question???? By going UP at the end????

"And there was this ONE TIME? At Band Camp?"



Which brings me to one of our local phrases..."brain bleach."

As in,

"And there was this ONE TIME? At Band Camp? And this girl took her flute and _____ ________ her _______ and then she ___________ it!"

"Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!!!! I need brain bleach!!!!!!!"



--James

[Jack]

New and Improved.

If something is new, how can it be improved?

(That's not a rhetorical question, by the way.)

[Doug_Tipple]

I am tired of hearing the word "exactly" being used as a form of active listening. It is a way that the listener idicates to you that they agree with what you are saying, but I doubt that their agreement is exactly so. One of my co-worker at the bank used "exactly" over and over as she was listening to customers on the telephone. It sounded to me like whatever the customer would say, she would reply, "exactly".

For example, the customer might have said, " I think that your fees are excessive and preditory", and my co-worker would reply out of habit, "exactly", which is not the correct response, even if the customer's comments were true.

[djm]

If something is new, how can it be improved?

Perhaps the new is better than the old.

Exactly!

djm