The "hated words" thread

[Running Mommy]

My sons fave word at the moment is "addicting"... UGH! When is school going back again?? All I hear is "Oh I LOVE those. They are addicting" all day LONG!
Ten year olds! They latch on to one thing and run with it!

[SadieKate]

"very unique"

It's either unique or it's not.

[Wahine]

"Orientate"

The "can't" thing is a real issue with me too. I deal with it all the time with clients. For eg:

Client: My leg was soooo sore I couldn't walk to the bathroom.
Me: Then how did you get to the bathroom?
Client: I walked, but it really hurt.
Me: To me that means you *could* walk to the bathroom but it was difficult because of your pain.

Then the patient usually gets a little huffy because because I'm forcing them to be honest with themselves and me. All of my client's have to get used to a little tough love.

[SadieKate]

"incentivize"

What is with our culture that we have to add "-ate" or "-ize" to perfectly good verbs?

[Mr. Bloom]

"incentivize"

What is with our culture that we have to add "-ate" or "-ize" to perfectly good verbs?

Oh, that one really irks me too! The word is "incent".
We "Incent" people! We don't "incentivize" them!

[mimitabby]

"Orientate"

The "can't" thing is a real issue with me too. I deal with it all the time with clients. For eg:

Client: My leg was soooo sore I couldn't walk to the bathroom.
Me: Then how did you get to the bathroom?
Client: I walked, but it really hurt.
Me: To me that means you *could* walk to the bathroom but it was difficult because of your pain.

Then the patient usually gets a little huffy because because I'm forcing them to be honest with themselves and me. All of my client's have to get used to a little tough love.

lol. yeah really.
but what i meant was. You can't do that anymore. Ever.
people misuse it and i'm glad you can call them on it. but when the word
means what it really is; that's about the saddest thing i can think of.

[csr1210]

"I seen..."

Drives me nuts - my boss must say this at least 10 times a day. One day I will "literally" blow up and scream that it's "I SAW or I HAVE seen!!!!!"

Okay, I feel better now -- like I've re-orientated myself ....but really, it has gotten to the point where I have a very difficult time saying the word "seen" -- even if I'm using it correctly.

Okay, I will stop now!

[mimitabby]

where do you live (general geographic location okay here) CSR1200 that your boss would say that?

[slinkedog]

"I seen..."

Drives me nuts - my boss must say this at least 10 times a day. One day I will "literally" blow up and scream that it's "I SAW or I HAVE seen!!!!!"

I have a sister-in-law that says this all the time... makes me totally insane!!

[bikerz]

I don't like the use of the verb "grow" with non-natural things. Nothing wrong with "I want to grow tomatoes" but "I want to grow the business" just irks me. There are many terms in common use in business or politics that bug me in the same way - "I've been tasked with doing x,y,z" comes to mind.

[Voodoo Sally]

Here are my peeves.

"Could care less." If you could care less, than you must care some amount. It's supposed to be "couldn't care less."

"Graduated" high school. It should be "graduated FROM high school". And going even further back (50 years?), they used to say "WAS graduated from high school."

That didn't "phase" me. The word is actually spelled faze.

"Nonplussed". This means the opposite of what many folks think it does. It means shocked, or speechless. People mis-use it when they mean unfazed, or unaffected.

[mimitabby]

Here are my peeves.

"Could care less." If you could care less, than you must care some amount. It's supposed to be "couldn't care less."

"Graduated" high school. It should be "graduduated FROM high school". And going even further back (50 years?), they used to say "WAS graduated from high school."

That didn't "phase" me. The word is actually spelled faze.

"Nonplussed". This means the opposite of what many folks think it does. It means shocked, or speechless. People mis-use it when they mean unfazed, or unaffected.

what is graduduated? I've never heard of this word.