words that annoy

derring-do

People don't say derring-do enough IMO.

actioned (this is the first time i have seen this "word")

context: your unsubscribe request has been received and will be actioned.

"stunned"

whenever something mildly unexpected happens in sport, politics &c the person or persons on the receiving end are always said to be "stunned".

similarly "floored"

'extravaganza'
'bonanza'

ugh

and er

'mentalist', as in a nutty, crazy person.

also when people use 'depressive' as an adjective. stfu. 'depressing' is obviously right.

'blogosphere'

come on really what the fuck

utilize

and any word with the same letter in more than about 4 times. i cant think of an example right now. but yeah.

I think I will try to popularize the term "protes" for proteins.

― fletrejet, Wednesday, September 24, 2003 12:36 PM (7 years ago)

So happy this never materialized.

ouster

idk what I was thinking choosing to intern at a middle school when, for 15 years straight, my least favorite word has been and still is
appropriate
Sometimes it's the right word to use but so many of the times it's not
and I have caught the disease
I just flung it out there in a way that wasn't appropriate
you guys really don't know the complex web of hatred I have for this word
even though sometimes it is the right word

lather. rinse. repeat.

today is a good day for me and crippling long-term hatred!

"amusing" -- almost always used in an arch, self-aware way. ugh.
"arguably" -- rarely actually needed in a sentence.
"old school" -- should never be applied to anything that is not old hip-hop.

transmittal

I think I'm guilty of nearly all three of J.D's.

I want to murder people who use the word "timely" as an adverb ("submit the application timely"), even though I know it's grammatically correct. it seems to be a favorite usage of bureaucratic assholes who will punish you for untimeliness, so maybe it's tainted by association. on the other hand, the clunky phrase "in a timely manner" (in which "timely" is an adjective) doesn't enrage me much at all.

I thought maybe I hated all words that had an -ly ending in both their adjectival and adverbial forms, but words like "weekly" and "daily" and "early" don't seem to bother me, so "timely" must be uniquely evil.

i hate that use of "timely" too! the same people i've heard use "timely" like that also said "verbage" (to mean "legal language").

former english majors with depressive disorders should not go into dilbert/office space type careers.

haw

on further thought, it seems like people use the adverb "timely" for brevity's sake to avoid the wordy construction "in a timely manner". but for some reason it doesn't occur to these people that they can use similarly brief (and far less irritating) alternatives like "on time" and "early" and "promptly". I guess assholes who edit themselves for brevity and plain speech are still assholes.

verbage/verbiage is absolutely vile, I agree.

(but "verbose" is alright)

One thing that has been getting on my nerves lately is "journey" as used by reality show contestants "it's been an amazing journey and I just don't want it to end" and otherwise intelligent documentary presenters talking to camera at the end of the film: "I've been a journey and have discovered..."

I'v e been *on* a journey, I mean.

'anyways'

stateside

magisterial.

^ I'm guessing that poor word has been badly overworked lately on BBC.

very possibly, but it's more the frequent use in book reviews and then blurbs that causes me to go IA in bookshops or other bookish places. wild eyes. handwaving. raised voice. concerned confused looks from companions. angry asseverations it's to do with a lubberly fear of masterly/masterful pedantry.

i see now from whence you arrived and you have my full sympathy.

thanks, A. not sure it is actually used out of the masterly/masterful fear, but I can't understand why ever else you'd use it. how can magisterial possibly be an appealing quality in a book, unless maybe its a historical/genre survey or other secondary text? (don't have a problem with these types of books, but they're the only groups I can imagine the word magisterial being a recommendation.)

but generally it just annoys me.

blurb writers seems to think 'magisterial' is a useful word to convey the idea that they were favorably impressed, while also showing off their vocabulary. when it turns out the book is not magisterial in any sense, you come to understand that their vocabulary is rather smaller than they thought it was.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/literally-everyone-is-lying.html

"Literally," I'm okay--I use it every now and again. "Actually" I use too often. My Achilles Heel is "just." I use "just" (when writing) like a teenager uses "like."

noise. noise annoys.

grok
parse
truthsquadding
wonk
spa
soups
mouthfeel

mouthfeel

iconic

activate

pecadillo

totes
simpatico (in Gringo usage)

Heard these both tonight in the course of a conversation and wanted to get up and leave.

females

moisturize

One of my sisters hates the word "tender" because her 3rd grade teacher privately admitted to her that she had a mole in "one of her more tender areas" after seeing a mole on my sister.

what about some love for the old legal tender?

That one, so soon after telling my sister's story, made me cringe as well.

"lil'" as an abbreviation for little. I have no problem with this as a rapper prefix, but in the vernacular it annoys the shit out of me.

"Bodied"

"prior to"