General Chat

Ooh, I could have a field day with this topic!! The habit I dislike most at the moment though, is the one of describing everything and everyone as 'awesome'. I'm not sure if it's a figure of speech that is common in England yet, but certainly here in the USA some people describe almost every person or action as 'awesome'. Small children pick themselves up after falling over and parents exclaim, 'You did awesome!' (Never mind a discussion on the grammar here.) I hand someone something that they were looking for and get told, 'You're awesome!' 'Awesome' means nothing now and there's no way of praising someone when they really do achieve something exceptional. Grrrr!!

When somebody repeats the end of the sentence that you have just spoken. D

Oh, and another thing - when someone says 'Are you serious?' any time someone tells them anything. I want to say, 'No, of course I'm not serious, I just said that for the sake of wasting my breath!'

I agree with all the hates that you have put on this thread and have to say that I agree with all of them BUT when writing online I must admit that I am guilty of 'innit', 'spose' 'cya' etc., but then I think that it is expected online and people ignore it, much the same that I try to ignore people writing 'No' for 'Know' or 'Now' or any permutation of the three. It grates. Also people who write 'cemetary'. Finally I must say that all these abbreviations or distortions that are now seen online are not new to keyboard operators and many words were seen as long ago as 1950 (to my knowledge) on telex machines - in fact byebye was bibi.

(I removed my message to Louise, just to confuse everyone!) One of mine - 'literally' as in 'I was literally climbing the wall' (some chance!) 'They were literally glued to their TV screens' (what a picture!) Another one is 'industry'. It used to mean manufacturing and creating the nation's wealth. Now it seems to mean spending the nation's wealth (as well as creating it in a different way) so it grates to hear 'The entertainment industry' 'the yachting industry' etc. I'm always in trouble with my daughters for nit-picking! One of them passed on her copy of 'Between You and I - A Little Book of Bad English' by James Cochrane knowing that I'd enjoy it more than she did! Anyone read that one? But yes, I DO use some of other people's hate words! Liz

People who say ' I won you!!!' Albeit a race or a playstation game etc... the winner does not get the opponent as a trophy!! 'I beat you' is what should be said! GRRRR!!! Karen

All the buzz phrases at work lately are very, very annoying eg upskilling, thinking outside the box, hit the ground running, etc, etc. Yawwwwnnn. Jan

Having said all that, there are lots of people on this site for whom writing is probably as much of a penance as numbers are for me! But every one of us can have just as many successes (or not) and as much fun as anyone else so my nit-picking refers to no one here! Liz

The phrase that grates inmy mind is when somthing serious has occured ,and there is nobody willing to put thier hands up to it ,for instance Social workers ,Police,Politicians,etc why do they always say that there are 'lessons to be learned'when if they had been doing what are paid to do,they should allready know the lesson,perhaps they are chancers in the wrong job in the first place. Sweet william.

Agree with the one about children being called kids. Worse still is when shops advertise items as 'Kiddies clothes'

It always drives me mad when people say that someone 'learned' them something. We learn things when someone has 'taught' us how to do it. I have never been able to hear that without correcting them. Several people earlier mentioned the 'Finger Speech'. Another of my pet hates. In the last week my 5 year old son has used it twice and I don't know where he got it from. Nipping that one in the bud right away. Christine.

I hate 'It's all good' my kids say that all the time about everything, it drives me nuts

Another phrase that I can't stand is 'caring parent'. I was labelled as one by my son's primary school headmistress when I was trying to get her to prevent my son being bullied at school on a daily basis. What she actually meant was 'overly protective busybody', but she didn't have the nerve to say it. I've heard 'caring parent' applied to lots of people - usually those who don't let their children run wild and expect others' children to behave like civilised human beings. It's not so much the meaning of the words I dislike, more the tone of voice in which they're spoken and the situations in which they're used. In my opinion, parents are supposed to 'care' about their children, so I don't see the need for the label. CB >|<

'Politically correct' GGRRRrrrrrr 'policy statement ' as in a document that someone has taken 3 days to compose covering about every possible permutation of something. jess

Liz, I agree on 'literally' used when it's not literally, and Jacqueline I hate 'it's all good', too. Also, 'it's so fun' and 'it's so not fun' or whatever, what happened to 'it's so much fun' or 'it's not much fun'? Susan

I hate the habit that a lot of sports people in Australia have fallen into of saying 'well look' before every sentence when being interviewed, and the at the end of the day , we are taking one game at a time, and children saying and some adults also I lent some money of someone No sorry you didn't you borrowed some money they did the lending , and all the children here say wicked or sick when they mean that's good or even better, but I dont worry about spelling mistakes on here as we are all not experienced typists and I think they are mainly typing mistakes , kind regards to all Lara

This is a very interesting thread. It's not a word or a phase that I hate, it's when people say something and go up at the end of the sentence... like they've asked a question. My sister used to do it all the time having spent too long watching American TV and it would drive me bananas! becx

I dislike being called 'the missus' and also 'the wife'. I was given a perfectly normal name by my parents and don't see why people don't use it. Sylvia xxx