Is there a turn of phrase used these days that rubs you the wrong way?

For example, "better than it has any right to be" sounds really backhanded to me. We're all critics nowadays and it seems so hard for us to just give an honest straight compliment.

Another one would be "the correct answer is" in response to an opinion. To me this language is in line with today's discourse, our poor ability to listen to each other, and the lack of respect we have for other ppl's thoughts.

These 2 bother me 'cause they seem to fit so perfectly into the social climate we live in. Maybe I'm reaching, Idk. But do y'all get bothered by any phrases that get tossed around often these days?

These will sound petty and kinda crazy, but:

When people say they, "pulled the trigger," on a purchase. When did clicking 'add to basket' become cool? Did you squint like Clint Eastwood as you hovered the mouse cursor over a half-price popcorn maker?

When people put, "...and change," at the end of sentences unrelated to money, e.g., "Four hours and change." I don't think it makes as much sense or simplifies the communication as phrases are meant to do, but whatever.

When a musician or actor dies and people make the news about themselves. "I didn't like their music, but RIP." Thanks for letting us all know you never liked a single thing this person who just breathed their last breath ever worked on. Just say RIP, maybe?

I feel like the word "toxic" is thrown around too liberally. If someone's opinion doesn't match yours, it's dismissed with the toxic label when it might just be a different, valid perspective.

I feel like a lot these phrases are just passed down and adopted and people use them without much thought.

Like I say "i'm going to take a piss" how does one take a piss exactly, it's a not a thing you pick up and run away with, it's an act. But I still say it, because i'm an idiot.

EDIT: Theres also "taking the piss" which somehow means insulting, but anyway... it's all dumb nonsense.

I feel like when I hear the word “problematic” these days, someone is going to bend over backwards to explain how offended they are and why you should be, too.

I also feel that some here will find this post problematic, which I find totally fine.

It's not exactly a phrase, but I don't like it when people talk about binging TV shows.

I just call it marathoning, and I'm not opposed to a better term coming along, but binging? Ew, no.

Not necessarily a turn of phrase but I really hate it when people say "this is going to be the best thing ever or it's a trash fire" or some equivalent. I know it's a statement that is meant to mean a largely unquantifiable aspect to something but it usually tells me the person saying it is on the fence with their hot take and wants to wait till their opinion is in line with others before attempting to insult someone or something.

Here in the netherlands people don't say wifi like it rhymes with hifi. For some reason they have dutchified the word to make it rhyme with TV. 'Wee-Fee' is probably the closest pronounciation. I don't know why this happened. We don't say Hee-fee instead of Hifi neither. It drives me insane. I refuse to adapt to this madness!

"Bad take" and "problematic" are two phrases/words almost exclusively used by the sort of Twitterspeak morons I can't help but hate with every fiber of my being. But that's nothing compared to seeing middle class people use the word "folks" (extremely common on social media) because they desperately want to relate to the working class and feel like they grew up harvesting soybeans or something despite growing up in NYC/LA. Please quit that shit, you really fucking suck.

"Radicalize you" is a really horrible one, my teacher say it about a month ago and I've never trusted her since.

@hnke: This is not why anyone uses Folks..

my nitpicks mostly revolve around unnecessary words.

the current thorn in my side: ‘learning(s)’

as in, “let’s be sure to carry these learnings forward into the next quarter.”

oh, you mean LESSON? you learn a LESSON. to use ‘acquire a learning’ makes it sound like one doesn’t understand the difference between being articulate and abusing a thesaurus.

"Outrage culture" makes my skin crawl because only creeps use it.

The phrase "has not aged well" is borderline meaningless without additional context, especially when talking about video games.

You know, one of my high school teachers hated the phrase "you suck" or "that blows" because he thought it was a derogatory term associated with blowjobs. Like, it associates a bad/disliked thing and relates it to the emasculating action of sucking dick? When I thought about it, I agreed with him, so I've tried to stop using the phrase. I view it as kind of similar to how saying "riding bitch" is looked down upon these days.

All of Twitterspeak, basically. "bad/hot/spicy take", "oof", "yikes", "this ain't it chief" "big mood". I just find all of it absolutely insufferable, which means I barely ever look at Twitter. Even very intelligent people I generally enjoy listening to like Austin Walker and Alex use all of it way too much. As soon as one dumb phrase stops being used, new ones take their place. It's a never ending cycle of nonsense.

Any of the 14 preset internet reaction compositions; You're not dead. You can even. Your opinions can be valid without exaggerating them to extremes. Relax.

Any time someone quotes something with "This is so important" to make it sound extra profound and meaningful.

Any millenialism or meme. Basically any time someone presents a reaction to something online without engaging with either the subject matter or their audience.

I think I hate the internet.

Master race

It's some real goddamn Kids These Days territory but honestly I'm just about there too.

@mellotronrules: Now that I think about it, a lot of business jargon really sucks. "Learnings" would bother me too. Similarly, I hate when I'm asked for "the spend" on something. What? Did you mean to say "how much did we spend?" or "how much are we spending?"

It's also annoying when they toss around terms they don't even understand. "Can you send me the spend from October YTD?" Well is it October's data, or year-to-date? Do you even know what you're asking for?

One other thing that bugs me is when people omit "to be." For instance, "the grass needs to be cut" turns into "the grass needs cut." Another example: "The car needs fixed." I've seen enough people do this that I'm starting to think it may be a regional thing. Either way, it drives me bananas.

I think this is a British thing, I noticed it while watching Doctor Who a few weeks back when the characters kept saying they were "in hospital."

I find the phrase "rubs me the wrong way" objectionable. It usually isn't a physical thing that irritates you, and rubs are usually good things. I get rubs from my cat, I rub dirty dishes to make them clean. It's just a stupid phrase, and I immediately and irrationally dislike anyone who uses it.

"Sucks dick" or "sucks ass" come up alot to describe something as negative.

When did sucking dick become a thing to be frowned upon? What's wrong with sucking some ass?

Anything that people under 25 say

Anyone who uses "yikes" and "my dude" regularly online sounds like a Scooby Doo character.

Wait, not sure I follow the A -> C here. As a Brit, I've never heard anyone omit "to be" from a sentence and @baconhound is right, that sounds horrendous. But what does saying "I'm in hospital" have to do with that? I don't think you can fit a "to be" in there! (Haven't seen the episode of Doctor Who you are referring to so don't know the context.)

Toxic, Problematic (say what you mean).

To Be Honest, If I'm Honest (why? are you not usually honest?).

Overrated, doesn't hold up (who decides these things? they can't be subjective because you're projecting it on other people's subjective experience).

I would be a better, happier person if these didn't bother me but I have a propensity for obsessing over minor uses of language.

"I think i deserve something for my trouble".
..... I work in customer service.....

"Could care less", "<subject> <verb> good" Always annoy me a little out in the world.

All the partisan internet buzzwords (overused by all sides) just make my eyes roll and make it very hard for me to take that person seriously.

You use 'folks' to address a group of people in a non-gendered way, I don't think people are using it while putting a piece of straw in their mouth and thinking fondly of their pappy.

This one doesn't bug me or anything, but I'm generally perplexed by the phrase "Doesn't respect the player's time," because I don't know what it means in relations to video games. It's lacking any sense of parameter needed to know how it applies as a criticism.

As far as ones that actually bug me, "historical accuracy" has pretty much become an avatar for "I wish this game only had white hetero-normative men in it" when discussing video games.

That to me all the same on these phrases, you understand?

I live life, me all the same on others

This one right here. Someone says something people don't like and regardless of the severity of the initial statement or topic at hand, they just say "oh boy is that a hot/spicy take" to dismiss it and not have to engage with it at all. Calling something someone else said a hot take is basically short for saying "you're wrong", but obfuscates how dismissive you're being.

Much more annoying are the people who use "don't @ me", it drives me insane, again for being so dismissive. Even using it as a joke normalizes it, fuck that.

I feel like most twitter speak simply exists to allow you to say or dismiss outrageous things without actually engaging with people. It's all just screaming into the void, and it's spread outside twitter like a metastatic cancer.

People calling their videogame characters toons drives me up the wall for some reason, but that doesn't reflect poorly on them as people, it's just something I personally find weird.

Yeah I'm getting pretty tired of the doesn't respect the players time argument too. It's a really valid criticism when you expound on it but I've been seeing a lot of just that phrase and just an assumption of "And you all know that's bad so moving on.."

Like, one way I think it's correctly used would be as a criticism of Super Mario Party. I really enjoy that game, and I think it's got some of the most-fun minigames and modes of any of the Mario Party series (Especially the rhythm-based music stuff), but the actual board-game part, I would argue, doesn't respect the player's time. I say this specifically for the criticism that there's so many un-skippable animations that don't add anything at all to the experience. I understand making the player watch them on the first round, but after that, they really need to be skippable. If a player gets a star on round 3, I don't need yet another ~8 second animation showing the change in the 1st place -> 4th place order. I got it, game, I really do.

But I hear the phrase "doesn't respect the player's time" also used a lot in terms of seemingly optional stuff, like side quests in open world games, or supplies management in stuff like Red Dead, stuff that seems like it's fundamentally a part of what the game is.

@theht: Binging captures the slovenly nature of watching TV all weekend.

Marathoning sounds more related to something that takes some stanima, and is generally more positive.

@pontoon_yacht: For me, a game with cookie cutter filler and padding doesn’t respect my time. It assumes that I’m paying for something to help make the time in my life go by.

An open world game like Witcher 3 feels super-crafted. Sure, there are some generic monster nests or guarded treasures, but the odds of me finding cool, unique, or compelling content in that game is high.

By comparison, asking me to find 100 feathers in Assassin’s Creed 2 for some questionable cut scene struck me as a poor use of time.

Now, if the sheer act of moving around in a game is a joy (Infamous, Crackdown, Sunset Overdrive), I’ll happily gather some collectibles, just for the joy of the controls.

I haven’t played it (precisely for the “respecting my time” reason), but AC Odyssey sounds like a nightmare from this perspective.

I’m also just a no-go for lifestyle games. I do SO much more with my life than play video games. I want to play more games than I have time to play. So the idea of hopping back on the Destiny treadmill is just repellent to me.

@nutter: exactly! when i sit down and marathon a show it's a pleasure, like sitting down near halloween and watching a bunch of horror movies late into the night. fun!

but binging sounds like i'm doing something that makes me feel disgusting and slimy. if marathoning shows or movies made me feel like that i probably wouldn't do it. :x

granted if i "marathoned" tv all weekend every weekend, it would kinda just become the baseline "watching TV." instead, it's more like an event.

Marathoning is something you do by choice and perhaps feel good about. Binging is suppose to have an icky feel to it. You ended up doing it because you have lost control a la "just one more episode." You need to do it for catching up purpose. It is a series that has "issues" but you need to see it through. Or you technically have more important responsibilities, but decide to spent time by watching TV.

Video game "doesn't respect a player's time" is a common thing now a days, and I think it has a long time coming. To me it basically means grinding or doing repetitive tasks that wears off its freshness in order to gain something that a player wants/needs. Grinding for levels, grinding for rep, item farming, hoping for drops, games on a timer are all part of this. With the boon of lifestyle games and microtransaction timer this has becoming a common issue.

Funny enough most MMOs from even decades back all have this issue as well.

@bollard: @three0nefive: @baconhound: As a New Englander who spent some time elsewhere, this was a thing I generally only heard from people from the South and/or possibly the Mid-West.

"Cutting the Cord" we all know what it means...but were all still stuck having to have internet....So its more like dropping the TV package.

Anytime some moron says "Literally" online.

"Oh I'm literally dying here"

No you're not

"Let that sink in." usually appended to some alarmist bullshit.

@sombre: Yeah...I don’t disagree, but language evolves and nonsense becomes sense...

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/literally

1 In a literal manner or sense; exactly.

‘the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the roundabout’

‘tiramisu, literally translated ‘pull-me-up’

1.1 informal Used for emphasis while not being literally true.

‘I was literally blown away by the response I got’

This is the one that's started to bother me more and more as time goes on.

It was started as a tongue-in-cheek joke by Zero Punctuation - he was making fun of "PC master race" types - but then they Yankee-Doodle'd it into their own thing. It's still a joke to most people, but as with any such joke, some of them take it way too seriously. Even as a joke, it's gone on for so long that it stopped being funny and has only left the unfortunate implications of the phrase "master race" behind. There's even a damn subreddit with that name.

*Disclaimer - yes, I do prefer playing games on my PC, it's more powerful and has more options and so on and so forth, but that doesn't make me inherently better at video games or at anything else, for that matter.

Otherwise, I don't know. I'm still more bothered by widespread spelling and grammar errors than any common phrases used by "the kids these days". "Rogue" is not spelled "Rouge", the latter is makeup. They should make a prominent X-Men character named "Rouge" just so that at least one group of fans has to correct themselves. Misuse of the word "literally" bothers me as well - it has nothing to do with emphasis, so don't use it for that.

"Make your own fun"

This is being used more and more to defend lack of content in games. Not everyone wants to roleplay, and you aren't some kind of un-imaginative buffoon because you don't find a barren, threadbare game enjoyable, even if you are playing it with your friends. It makes sense for games like Minecraft, where that is literally the point, but some modern games are using it as a crutch. Some of the main culprits for me have been Sea of Thieves and Fallout 76. While the devs themselves arent out there saying it, it's a very oft repeated phrase by defenders and apologists. I'd rather make my own farts.

Underwhelm. It's classified as slang, at least; but then it doesn't even make sense as slang. It is used as a way to imply that one is unimpressed... so why not use unimpressed, a real word? Especially when the implied meaning of underwhelm has nothing whatsoever in common with whelm or overwhelm.

Thanks to this thread I now must watch the video to Word Crimes by Weird Al Yankovic.

Yeah, some of these annoy me as well. Time for some nitpicks!

I think most instances of online text-only lingo filtering into verbal everyday speech are usually unnecessary. "Hot take" I don't mind as much, that's just an expression, but saying "don't @ me" aloud is about is silly as the people who would say "LUL/LOL/ROFL" aloud. I agree with you in the sense that a lot of text-only online lingo isn't about having an actual discussion, and is usually more focused on getting in jabs at whoever you're talking to, or simply stating an opinion/emotion that you just want to put out in the world and not have to listen to any feedback or dissenting opinions about. Those really have no place in IRL conversations where you're speaking with a small number of people that you actually want a dialogue with, though I admit things get murky with GB staff since they're often also vaguely addressing chat/the podcast audience.

Also, yeah, right there with you on hating "toon" to refer to one's character in a (usually) online game. Just say character instead? Why add needless extra jargon? The origin of the term "toon" is apparently hard to trace exactly, and it's so ingrained in the MMO culture now that we'll never get it out, but really, just say "character." As someone who never fell to the thrall of MMORPGs, this is how I feel about most MMO lingo. A lot of MMO lingo needlessly obfuscates the conversation with jargon when there are other more broadly used terms in the gaming sphere. For example, if Brad wants to use MMO lingo during a Destiny raid to describe things that are literally MMO mechanics, that's fine, but I die a little inside every time he says "mats" on a Bombcast when talking about Read Dead or something, as if saying "crafting materials" is so arduous for his human face muscles.

On a related note, it's not a turn of phrase, but I'm really not into when people use the weird in-universe terms for characters. It blows my mind that when asking about League of Legends, people will ask "What champ do you play?" instead of asking "What character do you play?" Champion, hero, etc., are words that have meanings, and if every character on the character select screen of your game are all equally considered a champion/hero, then the word has lost all meaning and you should just say "character." Except somewhere in some marketing room they figured out that 12-year-olds might think you game is more "epic" if every character is a "champion." I'd be fine if there was some kind of game where half the characters were "heroes" and half were "villains" and they played in some kind of asymmetric way, where "which hero/villain do you play?" is a meaningful question like "which support do you play?", but when hero/champ isn't a class and is literally just a dumb synonym for "character", the whole things feels asinine.

@bisonhero: I think mats is fine because it's at least an abbreviation, and things like champs or something is also okay because if the game is using those terms, it's players will probably pick them up as well. It is definitely marketing speak, but I wonder if sometimes there could be a legal sense to it, as though using champions or some custom term helps them retain certain copyrights or provide clarity in business/design documents.

Honestly I hate the twitter speak even when used on twitter.

"It is what it is" irks me to no end. Its basically giving a blanket excuse for something

@atastyslurpee: I am glad that you brought this up. I hear "it is what it is" at work regularly. Especially from one of my closest friends at the office, and I'm too polite to tell her to stop. It is always after discussing something that is bothering the person (my friend or otherwise), and is used as a means of giving up without admitting that the individual is giving up.

Either fight, or admit that you aren't going to do so. Don't try to hide behind a defeatist phrase as though it explains why the issue cannot be changed.