The "hated words" thread

[crazycanuck]

Heee heeee..Pop..heee heeeee..

I don't hear that word very often..It's hilarious! When Ian arrived in Canada he visted a local fast food joint. She asked him "what pop do ya want with blah blah" . It took a while for both of them to understand eachother..It eventually dawned on him that she wanted to know what soft drink he wanted..

Goes to show that although most of us speak english, it's not always the same english..

C

[bmccasland]

There's soda and pop, and then when I returned to the south, I rediscovered the universal "coke". "Want a coke? What kind of coke do you want? Coke, Sprite, Mr. Pib...?"

[Lise]

I just discovered this thread, and am soooo looking forward to reading it! No time now, must zip over to the Y to swim before the guppies invade (little kid swim time). But I'll throw out some of my most loathed words:

Operationalize. NO! WRONG! NOT A WORD!

Impact. Correct if you mean "one object hit another. There was an impact." Or, "the patient can't poop."
BUT NOT TO BE USED AS A VERB! "It really impacted me." NO! WRONG!

Thank you. Having thus vented my spleen, I'm off to swim.

[slinkedog]

Heee heeee..Pop..heee heeeee..

I don't hear that word very often..It's hilarious! When Ian arrived in Canada he visted a local fast food joint. She asked him "what pop do ya want with blah blah" . It took a while for both of them to understand eachother..It eventually dawned on him that she wanted to know what soft drink he wanted..

Goes to show that although most of us speak english, it's not always the same english..

C

LOL! My husband's whole family says, "pop" for soda and we tease them mercilessly about it.

[Thorn]

I second utilize when use will work just fine....it doesn't add meaning or subtlety so why not just use use?

And pronunciations that grate on me....mute for moot as in moot point. The point is not silent.

And pitcher for picture. There may be a picture on the pitcher or a pitcher in the picture, but they are not pronouced the same! The boss uses this one all the time and I have to restrain myself from leaping over the table and throttling him.

[Lise]

And a word I'm learning to hate:
Penultimate
its like it was just discovered and now everybody has to use it to sound upscale. all it means is next to last.
sheeeeeeeez

Penultimate has become popular?

At last! I'm one of the cool kids! A teacher made fun of me in 7th grade for using "redundant" (correctly, by the way). "Ooh, don't we use big words?!" I should've replied, "ooh, don't you have a little vocabulary?!" But I digress.

I've read the entire thread, and am comforted to find that many fine women are offended by the misuse of "impacted". Phew. This is a great relief to me. I feared that I was alone in the world.

This "hated" word is unique to certain areas, where folks have grown up speaking Spanish at home, but English everywhere else: Drank. As in: (in English), "I drank my pills", because the word "tomar" in Spanish means both "to take" and "to drink". I grit my teeth every time I hear it, but have abandoned all hope of correcting it. Argh, that makes me imagine how much my patients must endure my misuse of words in Spanish...

[snapdragen]

I have a girlfriend who says "dranked". I dranked all the juice. Arrrrrrrrrgh.

Here's one that strikes fear into every Information Systems person "I'm a technical kind of guy". Usually said when a clueless moron decides to "fix" something on his PC.

[Thorn]

Here's one that strikes fear into every Information Systems person "I'm a technical kind of guy". Usually said when a clueless moron decides to "fix" something on his PC.

Second only to a management type who says to the developer, "I used to write software, too." Which we all translate to "and if you were any good at it, you'd still be writing it"

[five one]

At last! I'm one of the cool kids! A teacher made fun of me in 7th grade for using "redundant" (correctly, by the way). "Ooh, don't we use big words?!" I should've replied, "ooh, don't you have a little vocabulary?!" But I digress.

I had a 9th grade civics teacher who pronouced Bourgeois as ber-gor-is. At age 14 I knew how to say the word, but I didn't have the nerve to correct her. I probably would have gotten suspended, or at least paddled. This was the mid-60s in Alabama where corporal punishment was still in use. The same woman said colyum instead of column. Over 40 years later, I can still dredge up the feeling of my teeth being on edge in that class.

[Eden]

I haven't looked at the rest of this thread so someone may have already mentioned this one

NUCULAR - as regarding to a nuclear power plant or device

aaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh

its not NEW-CUE-LER -unless you are talking about the nucleus of a cell
its NEW-CLEE-UR

I don't know why, but this drives me unreasonably batty

[Eden]

Penultimate has become popular?

hmmmm I've heard it a lot recently, but usually in a bike race context. The penultimate stage of the Giro, etc. I do believe they are using it in the correct manner to refer to the second to last stage of a grand tour, which is often, if not usually, the stage that decides the outcome of the race. I'll bet this could lead to the idea that it means the greatest or best.

[indysteel]

I get annoyed when I hear the word "Oriental" to describe someone who is Asian or of Asian descent. I limit my use of that word to rugs. Of course, I'm also not a fan of any of the pejorative words used to describe various groups and minorities. I have one coworker--an otherwise lovely person--who has used a number of such words in my presence, although she's since learned to edit herself in front of me to avoid a comment in return. It's not only offensive but also makes her sound like an idiot.

I also hate that text messaging phrases like "BFF" are starting to enter regular parlance. There's a commercial that plays on just that, with a mother struggling to "speak" to her daughter in "text," that makes light of it. It's a funny commercial, but I think it speaks to a real language barrier that's developing between the old and the young. Apparently, thanks to spell check and text messaging, kids are also having an increasingly hard time with spelling. I can accept that more and more computer and technology-related words are entering our "regular" vocabulary, but at least they're words.

Some misspellings and misuse get on my nerves. advise versus advice; effect versus affect, the word itinerary, recur versus reoccur, and judgment versus judgement (Judgment is the much preferred spelling. I work for a court; trust me on this).

And I hate, hate, hate the phrase "no worries." I have a friend who uses it constantly. I'll say something like, "I'm sorry that I'm just now getting back to you. My cat died yesterday, and I've been really upset." And he'll respond with "no worries." Okay, this is an extreme example, but whatever the context, I always end up feeling like the first and foremost thing that should be on my mind is how my life is affecting him. I hate to break the news to him, but it's not.

I recommend a book by Bill Bryson called "The Mother Tongue." It traces the development of English and provides funny and interesting explanations of the etymology of various words and phrases, especially those that are unique to American English.

[PinkBike]

i hear "pro-nounce-i-ation" instead of pronunciation

and "lair-nyx" instead of larynx

i love words. i do the daily crossword puzzle in about 7 minutes.
but i cant do sudoku (soduku? suduko? sokudu? sukudo?) to save my life!

[SadieKate]

Marketing director in a presentation yesterday - "I had them electronic-fy the print media so that . . . . . ."

Did you notice that all of us in the back row were rolling on the floor in gales of laugher? Some of us were already disgusted because you had already forgotten to mention our product (which the bigger revenue stream) as part of this incredibly important integration plan for our new business unit. Did you actually listen to any of the VPs talk about our unit's product vision? Then you went 20 mins over as the last presenter before dinner when we had been right on schedule all day. During the team building exercise last night your team voted you off the team because they, incorrectly, thought you were the mole in our Secret Agent/Spy exercise. You might want to think about why that happened and "electronick-fy" your observation and respect skills.

[IFjane]

Y'all have hit on every word that I can think of - especially the "seen" thread & the "alot" thread.....both really drive me up the wall! The biggest problem for me is that my SO - easily the sweetest, kindest man I have ever known - says "seen" sometimes. He grew up (Pacific Northwest) saying it and now it is such a habit that he sometimes does it without thinking. I remind him every time he does it & he sweetly corrects himself. Still, it is like fingernails on a blackboard.

On a lighter note, when my son (now 31) was about 4 or 5 & was just learning to read, he saw a "Pedestrian Crossing" sign & said, "Mommy, what is a pedesteranian?"