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Words or phrases that annoy you (even if you can't explain why) . . .
- Thread starter usagora
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Not really the subject of the thread, but now that you opened that door, let me officially say that I loathe people who cannot be bothered to get off their phone when conducting business in person. That is so incredibly rude.
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"Respectively" as in:
"The xyz coordinates are 10, 20 and 30, respectively".
"S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.14% and 0.09%, respectively."
Sentences structured in this manner are difficult to follow. If people organized their speech and writing more clearly in the first place, they wouldn't need "respectively". I think many journalists use that word as a pompous affectation.
"The xyz coordinates are 10, 20 and 30, respectively".
"S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.14% and 0.09%, respectively."
Sentences structured in this manner are difficult to follow. If people organized their speech and writing more clearly in the first place, they wouldn't need "respectively". I think many journalists use that word as a pompous affectation.
How is it difficult to follow?
"The xyz coordinates are 10, 20 and 30, respectively."
is a lot less wordy than:
"The x coordinate is 10, the y coordinate is 20, and the z coordinate is 30."
So, it's not about pompous affectation, but conciseness.
I think it’s absolutely YouTube and Instagram that says all the things I hate.
Namely GOAT, ride or die, and trigger.
GOAT is just another hyperbole and just replaced people saying “love love love” for everything. Somehow social media has pushed people to rate everything 11 out of 10 and GOAT is exactly that.
Ride or die just isn’t applicable to most anyone’s life, but again, hyperbole.
Trigger, like trigger warning, just doesn’t make sense. You can warn someone that there’s flashing lights or whatever, but people say trigger warning before showing a photo or song like anyone would know what they’re going to show or play and somehow the warning was warranted. The phrase trigger warning has become a Rick roll.
Namely GOAT, ride or die, and trigger.
GOAT is just another hyperbole and just replaced people saying “love love love” for everything. Somehow social media has pushed people to rate everything 11 out of 10 and GOAT is exactly that.
Ride or die just isn’t applicable to most anyone’s life, but again, hyperbole.
Trigger, like trigger warning, just doesn’t make sense. You can warn someone that there’s flashing lights or whatever, but people say trigger warning before showing a photo or song like anyone would know what they’re going to show or play and somehow the warning was warranted. The phrase trigger warning has become a Rick roll.
What is a "rick roll"?
That is an expression that I have never heard of.
Anyway, on the one hand, I find myself (largely) in agreement with you.
However, much as I deplore sloppiness in speech, sentence construction, vocabulary and the written word, I also feel that I have to point out that language is a living thing, and is constantly changing and evolving.
Sometimes, new expressions, or forms of words, or slang, stick, and remain part of the language, and then, usually because they expresse something that hadn't been articulated so succinctly before; sometimes, the fact that language changes reflects a lack that the language had failed to express earlier.
However, other times, it reflects precisely what you have written: A sort of sensationalism, hyperbole, an exaggeration, which is both a demand for attention and which is also used for effect and to stress the intensity of the experience on the part of the person describing it, an intensity the description invites you to share (and blinks with bewildered incomprehension when you fail, or decline, to do so).
An eleven minute video?
Seriously?
No thanks. That is eleven minutes of my life (and suffering on the part of my eyes) that I will never get back.
If you (not just "you" but everyone addressed in the second person plural) wishes to post a video and expects people to view it, please, please, make it exceedingly, extremely, exceptionally short.
Personally, I detest video links on posts, and there must be a compelling reason to want to watch them.
A single sentence by way of explanation - I love the written word, and I speed read - would be both nice and welcome.
Oh, well.
Tant pis, as the French are wont to say; I daresay that this is what urban dictionary is for.
Apologies for asking.
You asked a question (which could easily be googled, btw), and I linked you to a video that explains it better than I could in words. I'm sorry I didn't answer your question to your exacting requirements 🙄
Yes, it could have been easily googled, (and I have subsequently done so).
The question, might I add, was not addressed to you, but to the poster who wrote the post - @macsound1 - and I asked it as it was not an expression I had ever come across before.
I'm not American, much of the casual speech and popular expressions used in American culture do not cross The Pond.
However, the internet explanation leaves me equally baffled; I don't understand either the meaning or the context, - a context that, I suspect, needs to be culturally specific in order for it to be comprehensible - or the meaning.
Well, given the topic of the thread, I will simply choose to add it to the (growing) number of words and phrases that annoy me.
You're posting in a public forum. You asked a question. I assumed you wanted a timely answer. Since the other poster hand't answered you yet, I was simply trying to be helpful and link you to the answer. You then went off on a rant about how I answered it 🤷🏼♂️
Timely, no, not necessarily.
Informative and instructive, yes, which a link requiring eleven minutes of my time to view is not.
Why not tell me in words?
Words are what this exact thread topic is about, after all.
However, given that the thread topic actually discusses words or phrases that annoy, I will say that the use of such phrases is something that irks me, really, really irks me, even though I recognise that language evolves and changes as needed and necessary, acquiring and discarding words and phrases as are called for.
Good grief! You've probably spent more time complaining about my answer than it would for you to have simply watched the video. I'll just add you to my ignore list, that way I won't make the mistake of trying to help you again, okay? Good day.
"Lol" is another word - or text abbreviation - that I must admit I don't much care for.
In my experience, it tends to be used rather lazily, and the online world has yet to devise or design an emoji that differentiates between the meanings of "laughing with" and "laughing at".
In my experience, it tends to be used rather lazily, and the online world has yet to devise or design an emoji that differentiates between the meanings of "laughing with" and "laughing at".
I also hate “Lol”. What does it even mean? Lots of love? Laugh out loud?
Yeah! Back in my day, we would laugh, Hahahaha.🤨 Except for my buddy, Jose, who would laugh Jajajaja.🤭
Agreed.
Actually, agree completely.
What is wrong with "that is funny", or "I find that witty"?
Or, - the other meaning - "I find that utterly ridiculous"?
However, apart from sheer intellectual laziness, another reason, for my dislike of both "lol" and the "laugh" emoji is that they fail to distinguish bewteen "laughing with" and "laughing at".
I have little doubt that this lack of clarity (at times) re the precise meaning of this term has given rise to many an online dispute.
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In this case (the Rick Roll video), it's a bit like refusing to watch a Monty Python skit and instead insisting the Monty Python skit be described in words. Some things just lose something in the translation.
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E. B. White said something along the lines of, “The analysis of humor is like dissecting a frog. It can be done - but the frog tends to die in the process”
Trying to follow written instructions where the words appear in the reverse order of how you actually see the things. Especially when dealing with unfamiliar subjects and seeing something for the first time.
1. Open the Policies folder from Software from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
2. Select “Disable transparency“ from the Accessibility pane of System Preferences in the Apple menu.
it is like someone giving driving directions to “Turn right on Main Street from turning left on Infinite Loop after turning right on Capitol Expressway”.
1. Open the Policies folder from Software from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
2. Select “Disable transparency“ from the Accessibility pane of System Preferences in the Apple menu.
it is like someone giving driving directions to “Turn right on Main Street from turning left on Infinite Loop after turning right on Capitol Expressway”.
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I have a friend who says "lmao" out loud (pronouncing it "luh-mao"). The worst part is, after going on a two-week trip with him last year, I started saying it too.
The coordinates are x: 10, y: 20, z: 30.
Didn’t take that much effort to organize the sentence more clearly.
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