Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Here are a couple of phrases that I hate

I probably come across as an authoritarian agressor when it comes to proper speech usage, commercial likes, and decision making. That's not that true. I respect your preference to like stupid stuff, so long as you respect my right to criticize it. You can, of course, defend yourself (as you should), but chances are you are wrong anyway and will not win.

This is especially the case if you make a habit of using a particular set of words or phrases. My mom has a huge list, while most of hers are common errors made with actual words, notably the inexplicable "supposably" pronunciation for supposedly, which, in her mind, is grounds for sterilization. I have issues with that sometimes too, but I also have issues with words that are used that probably should not be nearly as often as they are. Let's take a look, shall we?

  • Myself - This is one of the former complaints. This is misused all the time. It is the reflexive pronoun used for emphasis or reflection, like when the subject and object of a verb are the same: for instance, "I laughed so hard at their grammar mistakes that I peed myself." It is not a replacement for the standard nominative (I) or objective (me) pronouns like, "John and myself will empty the tiger's cage" or "Please send the shoes filled with champagne to either Hector or myself." No dice.
  • Utilize - This is a longer word that means the same thing as use without bringing anything extra to the soup. This word should be used never.
I used an unnumered list, the inferior form of list, because I could only think of two at the time of writing this and a numbered list of 2 looks tacky, and quite frankly, we're all better that that. If you feel the need to demonstrate, please add your distasteful phrases in the comment section.

5 comments:

SHatter said...

I guess spelling isn't one of your angry concern. Check the bottom of your post to see the misspelling of "numbered."

Engineer Sighted said...

My keyboard gives me grief over m's and b's.

NG said...

"Particular individual," but this has been satirized adequately.

Unknown said...

I really hate the phrase "as per" or even just the word "per" as in "per our agreement, I will now kick you in the nuts every time you say that."

Engineer Sighted said...

@NG
Good call, but I don't really hear it often, thankfully.

@Damon
What would you prefer in its place?