Wait, what was that word? Yeah, I can't take you seriously

Are there other reasons to be annoyed by the use of a word? It usually has to do with either grammar or the overuse of the word until it has lost it's original meaning, which is indirectly related to grammar.

 

Not necessarily. When people use the word "tummy" instead of stomach or even instead of belly it annoys the fuck out of me. I don't know why. But if you are older than 10 and you refer to your stomach as your tummy you've earned my scorn.

 

"It would behoo of you." Usually coming out of the mouth of a man who has trouble with a newspaper, let alone a book, this man heard it from someone smarter than him... but doesn't actually know what the word is. All he knows is that it's a synonym for "You should." Every time I hear it, I immediately think "You are fucking dumb." Never mind the fact that "behoove" is a fucking obnoxious word to begin with.

 

When people use the words "epic" or "fail" in regular conversation.

Also, people who pronounce words pretentiously just to try to seem intelligent.

 

Street smart
Whenever I hear a person say "I'm not book smart, I'm street smart," I automatically jump to the conclusion that they are a highschool dropout with a criminal record, have a below average IQ, and are barely literate. Most of the time I'm not wrong. On top of that, most of them really aren't that street smart (not good with people they don't know [or even people they do know], not good in unfamiliar situations, much more likely to let their emotions control them, etc.).

ALT FOCUS:
What about people who use an incorrect word that sounds similar to the correct word?

I recently met this guy who was constantly doing this. He was a highschool dropout who always felt the need to use $5 words (I guess to sound smart), but he usually used the wrong words!

Here are a few examples:

Solder (real definition: a fusible metal alloy, used to join metallic parts; to join metallic parts using solder; to join, as if by solder.)
His use: "My friend was in a car accident and it soldered his arm."
He meant to say "severed," which means to remove a part of something from a larger whole.

Pigmentism (not a real word)
Use: "Back when I was high all the time, everyone looked the same color to me; now I notice peoples' pigmentism."
He meant to say "pigmentation," which means the coloration of tissues by pigment.

Marsupial ( a non-placental mammal that raises its young in a pouch)
His use: "Hey Bandit, help me settle an arguement. Aren't humans marsupials? Tell this fool here that humans are marsupials."
He meant to say "homo sapiens," the scientific name for humans. That one got the whole 28 man cell laughing at him.

 

People who use "mute" when they mean "moot".

Having worked in the wireless industry, nothing pissed me off more than customers who come in and would ask about their "sims card", even after i repeatedly said its a SIM card. This isn't a fucking EA game and the plural would be SIM cards.

meme-speak has generally run its course. Its gotten so mainstream its really not funny anymore. Its probably how "epic" got so widespread, as well as "legendary", "lulz", etc. Unless, of course, its accompanied by pictures of kittens. That never gets old. Also, the word "meme" itself.

"Hella". Used by itself or in a descriptive manner. Fucking retarded. "Yo bro, that slampiece is hella." Yeah, your head is gonna hella hurt with a hollow point carving through it.

I watch a lot of cooking shows like Top Chef, Chopped, Iron Chef, etc and it frustrates me how often the words "flavor profiles" are used. It sounds so pretentious and asinine. There's got to be a better, more down to earth way to describe it than flavor profile. Right?

 

For some inscrutable reason, probably involving gay marriage and the end of the world, it has become popular for consultants here to refer to patents/Intellectual Property as 'tangible intangibles'. I have actually heard someone say, in an interview, that he would 'help us monetize our less tangible tangible intangibles'. I wasn't quite sure whether to laugh or cry.

 

Legit: My little sister is the worst offender I encounter in real life but I think we can thank Jersey Shore for that one. I've actually threatened violence on my sister if she didn't cut it out.

Preggers/preggo: This has bothered me since long before I found myself in the family way but it flat out irks me now. If you are old enough to become pregnant you shouldn't sound like a five year old when you describe it.

Bestie: Really? You're 22 years old and refer to your friend as your bestie? Am I the only one that is annoyed by this?

 

From the same crowd that uses preggers regularly, va-jay-jay. I can't even put into words how dumb that sounds.

 

I'm extremely tolerant to pretty much everything listed so far, but the one I can't fucking stand is when people say the word carbs instead of carbohydrates. As soon as this passes through someone's lips I think they are the intellectual equivalent of a tramp stamped, fake tanned sorority chick barely able to maintain passing grades in her MRS degree that exclusively exercises on the elliptical machine. I don't even mind if you abbreviate with carbohs or something, but carbs sets me right off.

Sadly pretty much everyone uses it, but I already think I'm better than everyone anyway, so I guess it doesn't change much.

 

"Unthaw"

"Yeah, I just gotta unthaw the hamburger and then I'll make the patties."

Really? You're going to freeze the meat, then form it?

 

I think the term "card" was put into the lexicon during the OJ trial and I hate it. Everything that happens now is card this, card that..."oh she used the guilt card on him"...."the race card". Where the hell is this card deck, I haven't seen any of them.

 

I hate business speak, currently that hatred is focused on "wheelhouse", as it seems to be the word du jour.

 

"Interwebs" "Intertubes" "Intarnets" and all the other "funny" misspellings and mispronunciations of "internet" drive me kind of crazy. It's not funny, it's not ironic, it's not anything but fucking annoying. I get it, a politician didn't understand the internet this one time on The Daily Show but maybe it's time we stop referencing it?

In the case of one annoyance trumping another, I used to hate people abbreviating the word "appetizers" with "apps" and now I am starting to get annoyed with the replacement of the word "program" for desktops with "apps." Hmmm, I guess I just don't like the word "apps" except that it doesn't bother me when used in a cell phone context. Unless overused, like anything else.

 

Any and all LOL, LULZ, TLDR shit is aggravating, especially when used in physical, verbal conversation. It's awful enough that I have to read it on a regular basis, speaking it to me tells me to stop listening.

If a word is correctly used in a sentence, I probably won't get all bent because someone is using it. If it's a mocking sort of conversation between friends, we fuck around with vocabulary all of the time. It's sorta of group masturbation based on our wealth of knowledge.(Sarcasm, kids. ish)


People I can't take seriously are the ones who are willfully uninformed. You know, complaining they can't lose weight with a Twinkie and Diet Soda in their paw, telling you that their doctor says they can't run, "it's bad for them" type. They can't "stick" to a diet, blah, blah. You can suggest exercises, explain it's a lifestyle not a diet, etc. and they aren't listening to you, either.



edit: Spelling lose as loose bugs the shit outta me. You did not loose your mind. You may have a loose mind, though..

 

This.

 

Paradigm and synergize are both words that are popular in the business world and are fucking irritating.

The president of my company loves these terms. I swear he once said something along the lines of "We need to synergize our new business paradigms" during a budget meeting.

 

Preggers.

The only "word" that causes me any kind of distress. It just rubs me the wrong way.

Everything else is manageable. I'm sure I use a couple words here and there that piss other people off, so who am I to judge?