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Tired, annoying phrases

#367
I work for a very large corporation. These phrases never fail to tick me off:


"I just wanted to give you a heads up." TRANSLATION: "I'm dumping a whole load of c*@p in your general direction."

"Please advise." TRANSLATION: "I don't know what I'm doing so I'm counting on you to bail me out of this."

"I need this ASAP!" MY RESPONSE: "I'll get in done ASAP just as long as you mind it being totally FUBAR."
 
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#371
I have a brother-in-law who has a masters degree in psychology. He values education quite a bit and judges people by their level of education. With his education he still massacres the English language.
He grew up in San Francisco but for some reason doesn't know the word "saw." He will say "I seen your friend yesterday." "I already seen that movie." For some reason that bothers me even though I know it shouldn't.
He also says the Ch in Chicago the same as the Ch in the word children. I always thought it was more like Sh. Is there anyone from Chicago here who can tell me the correct way to say it.
Last night he was cracking me up. He was telling us a about an artist who paints landscapes. He referred to him as a landscaper. I knew what he was saying but it was still quite funny.
 
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#376
There are a couple of phrases that have slipped into the general vernacular in the last 20 years, especially in TV news "media speak", that constantly annoy me, and are often used in tandem---"getting closure" and "getting on with my life" (plus all the variants). Usually used in conjunction with a tragic story of loss, the use has become this demeaning cliched reaction to sad events, as if there was a set time for grieving, and it would be expected to someday just wake up some morning as if nothing had happened. It's worse when the survivors use it themselves, in reference to themselves; sure, they may be in shock, they may not be eloquent, but it's sad to me, and a little irritating, that they default to such triteness. No one ever knows what it's going to take to absorb and process a trying or devastating situation, and how long that may take. These phrases suggest that everything gets wrapped up in a neat little package eventually. My other major irritant is something that has crept up on Craigslist, initially in the general LA area, but I have frequently observed it in other vicinities. I realize that there is slang, and that there is bad grammar(due to a lack of education or an ESL situation), but I really despise willful corruption of the English language. I keep seeing ads for, or references to, buying or selling "vinyls"(plural). Sorry, but 'vinyl' is the material that 'records' or 'albums' are made of, not the item(that could be plural)itself. It it a nebulous, all-inclusive description, in the singular and multiple, referring to the common substance material of manufacture. In fact, the use of 'vinyl' to describe a 12" or 7" record of recorded audio maybe only dates back to 60's; before that, even though the reference was way out of date, 'wax' was the slang term used. Do you refer to streets as "asphalts"? No, that's the material ALL streets are made of. Do you refer to buildings as 'steels' or 'concretes'? The other CL peeve, which I've encountered numerous times, is when something is listed "for sell". Sorry, but you may want to 'sell' something, the activity of exchanging an item for a predetermined amount of money or something of value, but the state of that item being available for such a transaction, is to be available 'for sale', the sale being the actual(potential)activity of exchange of money for item. I feel that dumbing down of language is to dumb down thought processes. Anyone remember George W. and his 'nucular' energy?
 
#380
Michedelic said:
I keep seeing ads for, or references to, buying or selling "vinyls"(plural).
Click to expand...

I used to have the same peeve about people using a word improperly, then someone edjumucated me.

While I generally agree with your post, "popular usage" is the way new words, and new meanings for existing words, evolve. That was my education; that if enough people use a word to incorrectly mean a certain thing, eventually it may be recognized as correct.

Dictionaries aren't static, they are changed constantly.

The ironic aspect of this specific peeve is that "vinyl" is in fact already recognized in dictionaries as a noun for record albums.
 

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