Schmenglish IX

Yesterday I snickered at a list of five “atrocious science clichés to throw down a black hole.” After additional snickering at the comments which followed the article, I got to thinking about overused phrases that bug me. Many of them have to do with redundancy. For instance:

  1. Almost identical
  2. Past history
  3. Quite/very/really unique
  4. An added bonus
  5. Tuna fish

And some all-stars on my peeve team:

  1. Controlling his/her/their own destiny
  2. My bad
  3. Same difference
  4. Literally
  5. Ironic (when something is in fact just a strange coincidence, having nothing to do with irony)
  6. Happy/unhappy camper
  7. All the sudden
  8. Staycation (I mean it. I will hit you.)
  9. Git ‘er done (See above.)
  10. Referring to a presentation at a meeting as a “piece” (“Regarding the education piece I talked about the other day…”)

And there are many more, but I’m out of time. I covet your peeves. Please post them here for all and sundry — especially if you hate the phrase, “all and sundry.”

The Thriller and I are off to Potter matinee madness today. Fun.

Fink out.

8 thoughts on “Schmenglish IX

  1. BoomR

    Maybe it’s because I work in the tech world, but a couple of my peeves from co-workers:

    1. Ping (“Does Johnny want to join us for lunch? Let me ping him…”)

    2. Download (“Let’s get everyone together for a download after we get back from the conference …”)

    …no, Really… UGH…

    Reply
    1. Rat Fink Post author

      AARRRG are you SERIOUS? Especially #2…that would make me want to pound some people. Poor Boom Boom!!!

      Reply
  2. Will

    I work in a college bookstore and what gets on my nerves is when people call on the phone and ask for the “ISBN Number.” Part of this is that you don’t call Best Buy to get the product code on items so you can order them online so why should I do the same thing? But, mainly, ISBN is short for International Standard Book Number. It’s repetitive. It’s like saying “Want to get a Hamburger burger?” or “I’m going to decimate the population by taking out 1/10th.” You only need to say one or the other, not both.

    Reply
    1. Rat Fink Post author

      Ah yes, Will…the old pleonasm trick. My favorite is “3 a.m. in the morning.”

      Shoot to kill, my man.

      Reply
  3. PKPudlin

    My husband has a few of his own. They are totally mixed up and don’t mean a thing. Observe:

    “It isn’t cracked up to what it’s supposed to be.”
    “You hit the hammer right on the head.”

    Then there’s the ubiquitous statement, “Six one-half”. Enough to make even a hardened escapee from the Department of Redundancy Department cringe.

    PK

    Reply

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