Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

"I can see where you're coming from" - instead of "I understand your
position".

With best wishes,

Peter.

These are the ones that irritate me most:

'My bad.'
'You are so not funny', 'I am so going to that party', etc.
To 'diarise' something (i.e., put something into one's diary).
'I'll catch you later.'
'Do you get my drift?'

'Going forward' for 'in future'
Any use of situation other than to describe a situation

In my experience "I hear you" also carries the implication "but I don't
necessarily agree with you".

Awesome idea, dude!

Dude, I'm so, like, at this moment in time,
yaaaand, on a daily basis, whatever.

The reality is
As we speak
To be fair

all seem to crop up far too often.

spam@uce.gov wrote:

I'm there.
Peeps
And I'm like...

Several times in a restaurant we have asked the waiter for something or
other, and the response was "Not a problem." Well, I didn't say it was a
problem, it is just a simple request like more bread please. I wasn't trying
to be a problem!

Gary Eickmeier

One that was prevalent in England (I don't know if was used anywhere else) a
little while back - thankfully it seems to be falling out of fashion - was
'say again?'. This was used instead of 'I beg your pardon?', or 'sorry,
could you repeat that?'. I used to find it particularly annoying, especially
(as was almost invariably the case) it was said two or three times.

Clearly those who used this term thought that they had latched on to an
'ultra-cool' form of expression, and that the 'coolness' factor would be
increased immeasurably by a few repetitions!

Rolling out. 'We're rolling out our new pension plan next year.'

Sexy. 'Our new pension plan is sexy.'

Getting into bed with. 'Acme are getting into bed with Star to offer a
new pension plan.'

Blue-sky thinking.

A creative: someone who writes advertisements.

Vibrant: used euphemistically to descrbe a  neighbourhood with a lot of
black people living in it. (UK only?)

24/7 instead of always.

'I caught up with' instead of 'I went and interviewed'. ('I caught up
with the Pope last week'.)

Celeb.

The Royals.

'Begs the question' when what the person should say is, 'Gives rise to a
further question, and by the way, I am a donkey'.

'Express myself' used by a footballer to describe what he does on the
pitch.

Tragedy: used to describe someone dying.

'Give it up for' instead of 'Let's give a nice warm round of applause
to'.

'Today' used instead of nothing at all, as in 'How are you today?'

Talent: as in 'Britain's Got Talent'.

Peter

Less people. (Ok it's not a buzz-word. Obnoxious though!)

Peter

Caesar Romano <Spam@uce.gov>'s wild thoughts were released
on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:24:01 -0600 bearing the following
fruit:

I was pressurized into it

--
Jan Hyde

Proactive. It's not new, but I had never heard it until ten or fifteen
years ago. I think of myself as propassive.

'I need' rather than 'I'd like': 'I need you to go to sleep'.

'Get' rather than 'have': 'Can I get a beer?' (I've heard barmen reply 'No,
I'll get it. I'm the barman'.)

Decayed instead of decade.

Staycation. Yuk!

'I'm clear'. A peculiar invention of British politicians. 'I'm clear that
we're committed to pretending to want to stop bankers being paid large
bonuses'.

Peter

"Epicentre" used to refer to the true centre, source or hub of an
activity, trend, or idea, where the word's original sense, meaning the
external or superficial point nearest to a subterranean or otherwise
hidden centre, isn't applicable to the context. Likewise for "ground
zero". (See Fowler's article on "popularized technicalities" for other
examples, many of which continue to be abused in this century.)