Every time I hear someone say ‘eh’ in a questioning tone or to mean ‘um actually’ I lose my shit. Or even just to play something down.
Like I literally come to hate the person instantly. Its a very strong feeling on a very small sound.
Instant downvotes if I see it on Lemmy too. HATE IT.
How about all y’all?
“Boys will be boys.”
Fuck you Tom! That’s how you react to your brat violating the bodily autonomy of another human beeing!? Hearing you say that means he feels it’s normal, he’s got permission and that it’s good masculine behavior. You’re teaching your son to be an asshole instead of a functioning human being. Boys will behave better if we teach them to, so you better pick up the slack and join the rest of us in raising your fucking child!
Eh…
“No offence, but …” followed by an insult.
Or starting off with an insult, then ending it with “Just saying …”
As if these phrases nullify being a dick. If you’re going to be an asshole, own it. Don’t make excuses up.
That is the most Ricky Bobby thing ever, but sadly its also a very southern thing
Ricky Bobby
Sadly we get this phrase in ireland too. Especially from a certain class of society
Shake and bake?
“I call it as I see it.”
“I’m just very straightforward and honest.”
No, you’re a prick. That’s what you are.
People who champion “brutal honesty” generally seem much more excited about the brutality than the honesty.
Yeah, being truthful is generally good but that’s independent of being an ass about it.
People who add periods to their acronyms (which is unnecessary to begin with), and then omit the last period.
R.I.P
M.A.S.H
Instead of “et cetera”, the speaker says something akin to “dut da da”. Drives me crazy!
Oh there’s one I hate to no end.
To make a superlative, in Spain there’s this sentence that it has become popular:
[whatever adjective]? not, the next thing
Tall? Not, the next thing
Difficult? Not, the next thing
Expensive? Not, the next thing
Blue? Not, the next thingWhat the fuck is the next thing?
It was uninspired 15 years ago, now is just infuriating when you hear it five times in the same conversation.
I’ll be honest, I’ll be honest
“It is what it is.”
If you don’t have anything valuable to add, say nothing. Like, silence is okay.
That phrase has always had a Buddhist-type quality of acceptance for me, even before I knew what Buddhism was. But I think it is favored by people who fail to recognize the difference between “seeing reality as it is” and “believing that reality can’t be challenged or changed”.
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“Look, all I’m saying is…”
Yeah I get it. You’re not going to acknowledge what I just finished saying, you’re not going to respond to the facts that contradict you, and you’re just going to reiterate your oversimplified and shitty opinion, hoping to slip away from this argument that you’re losing.
Most forms of slang have a bit of that experience for me. The whole point of language is an attempt to make it possible to transfer information from one person to another. If someone is going to intentionally obscure what they are saying, they’re just being an asshole, making other people do mental work, either so they don’t have to (‘So I was, like, mluh’ instead of ‘I felt angry for being mistreated.’) or just to assert dominance. (using heavily obscurant slang their friend group came up with outside of the group, ‘totes mcgrotes crackin’ being used to mean ‘very horny’)
Sometimes we disagree on what the required amount of information that is needed for a sentence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle
And sometimes we’re playing the wrong “game”
Those are essentially what I am talking about. The speaker should want to be understood, and should make it as easy as possible for the other person to understand them. By choosing to ‘play a different game’ they are going against the cooperative principle, seeking to benefit themselves at the cost of others. The cost may be fairly trivial, like cutting in line costing the person behind only a minute or two, but it absolutely suggests the person doing it is selfish.
“Have you ever sown a field, Lady Olenna? Have you ever reaped a grain? Has anyone in House Tyrell? A lifetime of wealth and power has left you blind in one eye. You are the few, we are the many. And when the many stop fearing the few…”
From your point of view. Your point of view may be the objectively correct one, and I would love if just saying “no more crazy people” meant no more fighting with people who have way too much confidence and zero rationality, but they still might have their own points of view.
And I for one can’t say which is the objectively right one.
For instance I find that my personal preference to abiding Grice’s maxims would be way too detail-oriented, and people usually feel as though I’ve broken the maxim of quantity and quality by “over-serving them” whereas I feel they’re not nearly accurate enough. Or they’re too accurate about something way too irrelevant and I’m very confident in the matter and thus find the quantity of their explanation superfluous.
It’s so much about context and less about what is “objectively right.”
I used to drive a taxi and would have no problem letting other people “set the rules” as it were (people really enjoyed me as a customer service agent in all different jobs I was in, and I’m not just saying that even though ofc everyone would think so becuase I’m saying it myself), but yet I don’t have lots of close personal friends, because I get to actually talk about what’s interesting to me and not just yap about some irrelevant bullshit, people have a different preference to how much they like talking and thinking about things. Mines “more than theirs”. I can accommodate their rules, but they clearly can’t accommodate mine. So it would only make sense for me, the more adaptable one, to adapt, as they’re clearly incapable. Unless I want to be alone.
Would you disagree?
I would agree in some senses, but not others. I maintain that it is good to be precise, and that most people can be taught to be precise, given time and encouragement, and it is only a society that demands everything happen ‘efficiently’ that turns time into a scarcity such that people feel they have to find something ill-considered to say immediately rather than think for a time and find the better way to express what they mean. There are those with a mental handicap, and I wouldn’t expect the same from them that I would from someone less limited, but I will always lose esteem for those who choose speed over truth when the circumstances permit the time, or choose precision incorrectness in the service of themselves at my expense.
I make no claim of objective moral value, but rather the practical value. If one speaks, it is for a purpose. Speaking with the intention of being understood is the most common and speaking with precision serves that purpose. Speaking with the intention of obscuring is generally regarded as a form of lying, and lying can be regarded as a form of violation, akin to dosing someone with a hallucinogen, distorting their perception of reality. Such violations can serve a purpose, but they remain violations, and are generally not to the benefit of the listener. The general regard for someone who harms others for their own benefit, once the harm is recognized, is negative.
If we want to stand back from the structures of social norms, personal interactions, epistemic/ontological stakes, etc. none of it matters, but we don’t get to live in that conceptual space, only visit.
‘could care less’ instead of “couldn’t”. I know it’s just a regional / generational difference, I don’t really care about being a prescriptivist or that my way is more “logical”. Phrases and idioms can be stupid and counterintuitive. But that
'ssaid, it bugs the living hell out of me, and I instantly think anyone using it is an ignorant dumbass.Quite so. Isn’t there an Internet law that you can never post something pedantic about language without making a typo or other error?
Absolutely.
Apart from the exact cases the lovely krudler just mentioned I agree with this. The misuse is very annoying.
The phrase was used decades ago to be somewhat of a dismissal or threat.
As in I care so little already, do you want me to care even less which will be not at all?
“Dad! You don’t care about my hamster!”
“I could care less…” (bitch again and the next stop for hammy is the freezer)
Like people who complain about “literally” being used hyperbolically, I’m always a tad concerned that someone wasn’t able to discern this to the point of making that inability known publicly.
Gonna bookmark this; it’s a great explanation.
This is the only place (Lemmy) that I’ve informed people and wasn’t met with a series of condescending lectures from kids. Shocked I have no downvotes actually!
If I cared any less I’d have to start thinking about how little I care, and I don’t care enough for that.
I literally dislike it whenever anyone uses the word literally when they clearly mean figuratively.
Its just extra syllables to lie to me.
There’s this process in language where intensifiers — words that amplify the strength of the meaning of the rest of the phrase — tend to become used in areas that they aren’t really truly appropriate in and thus “weaken” in meaning.
So, for example, “awesome” once truly meant “awe-inspiring”, but it’s been used enough in weaker senses the past several decades here in California that it doesn’t really mean that any more. It just means “very good” now.
I don’t think that the Brits do that with “awesome” — or at least not as much — but they like to use “colossally” in a similar way.
The above Wikipedia link has a list of intensifiers, including “literally”, and you can probably recognize a bunch of them that have “weakened”.
Really blows my mind that so much ink is spilled over “literally” while “really” gets a pass for doing the same thing really.
Epic
brilliant!!!
As I said in another comment, it isn’t just using it incorrectly that’s annoying, it’s also using it unnecessarily. People use “literally” for emphasis in sentences where no adverb is needed. It should only be used if you are clarifying that you mean literally when the sentence could otherwise be interpreted as figurative
It’s just become a stylistic habit. People do it in imitation of what they hear everyone else do. This actually makes it even more annoying to me, though I know this is just instinctive human behavior.
“It is what it is”. This cliche is symptomatic of learned helplessness and only serves to protect the status quo against any sort critical analysis and reform.
Pretty context dependant. Some things you can’t change and have to deal with, so it is what it is. We got shit tools but the work needs to be done now so it is what it is.
It’s sad you feel that way. We can’t magically change the weather today, it is what it is. But if we keep pressuring businesses and politicians, we may be able to mitigate it for future generations.
I was thinking of it more in a work context where when I question why some old and very inefficient work flow can’t be optimized in some way, I get that cliche in response.
It means whomever is above them is perceived as rigid. Maybe they are, maybe not. Do a POC in spare time and present it. Maybe something will come of it, maybe not. Either way, it is what it is.
Something I recently read when researching the tetragrammaton in Judaism, the name doesn’t necessarily mean just, “I am that I am,” it also means, “I am becoming that which I am becoming.” And things seldom look exactly in 3D as I picture them in my head or on paper. So it’s an interesting concept.
I don’t recall the site, some Jewish site about the rabbinical reasoning or translation.
pressuring businesses and politicians doesn’t matter much if the people themselves are living their lives in a hypocritical way.
Then don’t live that way.
I don’t. doesn’t mean that like 90% of the people around me aren’t living that way thought.
I’d go so far as to say American culture at least, is inherently hypocritical and to be a’ good american’ you have to live a life of deep hypocracy.
When I realize how difficult it can be to control myself, choosing a fruit over candies or cookies when that sweet tooth hits hard, I realize the folly of controlling my neighbors and focus on myself.
Fully agree, it contributes nothing but impotence. I make a habit of saying “we’re stuck with this unless…”
Sometimes change is impossible, but not nearly as often as this defeated little phrase gets thrown around.
