Electrocute.

engineer

Yes indeed.

Stunning – when used by estate agents.
Tremendous – when used by donald trump.
Most superlatives.

Vertigo

I don’t know if it’s improper use but “surreal” seems to be getting over-used these days espeially by thicko sportsmen and women when being interviewed having just won something. Like they haven’t been living and breathing this moment for the last several years of their existance.

“I’ll give it 110%” also grinds in similar circumstances. What’s to stop an opponent giving 200% and beating them then?

The answer to this post is “like”…….

most overheard conversations these days are along the lines of:

“….and she was like yeah but, and he was like driving, she was like saying like like like…..”

Drone mounted lasers to be deployed to control this horrible and lazy trait.

Have we had “Bigly” yet?

So

Which seems to start lots of answers to questions these days usually in sentences that end “,like” or “y’get me?”

Super

Enormity

Quiver (of bikes)

nealglover – Member
If you’re mildly irritated by “decimate” not meaning the Roman Legion “reduce by a tenth” your mild irritation is misguided. Decimate means “to tithe”, it’s to do with collecting taxes.
Both of which would be “historical” definitions.

Pretty much everyone uses it correctly, according to the current OED definition.

I’d go as far as to say, anyone that pretends to be irritated by people using it “incorrectly” is just looking for an excuse to sound clever. (Because they watched an episode of QI and remembered a bit of it)

Blimey it was just an example , good job I didn’t use myriad .

😆

My mini rantette was more aimed at a guy I work with who is constantly “correcting” people about this sort of stuff. Half of what he says is wrong but nobody can be arsed anymore to tell him.
This just makes him worse though as he now thinks he is the only person who knows anything 😕

Bombers

What about Bombers??

Can I get disinterested and uninterested. Like, I am good.

summit and medal now turned into verbs to summit and to medal… really? didnt get that memo.

“Going forward” really boils my piss; there’s an air of absolution about it that I find disdainful.

“Word!!”

Horrorshow.

Cougar – Moderator
Thanks for that, that’s the sort of linguistic wrangling that keeps me awake at night. See also, flammable and inflammable.

70’s electrical manuals:
‘Depress the button’.
Eh?

Press it?
Release it if already pressed?
Buy it a subscription?

Genius.
Artist, often used to describe non creative types.
Flavour, is a problem for me. I think it should only be used to describe taste. I know it can be used to describe the atmosphere of a place but it doesn’t sit right with me. To make matters worse it appears it is written in the contracts of all BBC news reporters to use ” flavour ” as much as possible to describe anything other than taste.

I beg your pardon?

You are pardoned.

Ruler.
For fu**ing measuring.

Miracle used to mean an inexplicable event requiring divine intervention. Now it is used mainly to describe any medical cure.

“I could care less”

Could you? Oh that’s good. For a moment there I thought you didn’t care. Turns out that you do in fact care, but admit that it would be possible for you to care less than you currently do.

Not quite on topic but I am a member of the local library and most of the books I take out somebody has decided to put lines through words that they think are incorrectly used and put in what they think is correct . Really pisses me off , firstly it’s not your book leave it alone , secondly I’m not sure if most of what they think they are correcting is wrong in the first place .

Oh and “pacific”/”pacifically” can get in the sea too while we are at it.

My mate says touche when someone says something funny. Drives me nuts but feels like I’d be being a know-it-all prick to correct him.

When a person being interviewed says look when they mean listen. Either word is rude and patronising (what do you think I’m doing?) but looking at you even more carefully isn’t going to help you win your argument.

My mate says touche when someone says something funny. Drives me nuts but feels like I’d be being a know-it-all prick to correct him.

Do you mean touché?

Yours,

A know-it-all prick.

😀

When a person being interviewed says look when they mean listen.

Cameron was always a big fan of this and it seems to have spread to other politicians lately. “Look, I’m not here to..”

I think it’s supposed to be some kind of faux-straight talking man-in-the-street thing.

On the same theme, the use of the word “Honestly” by politicians. As if to highlight that most of what they say is not honest.

Oh and “pacific”/”pacifically” can get in the sea too while we are at it.

Can it not “get in the ocean” instead. Just to keep things accurate.

Retro.

GrahamS – Member

Cameron was always a big fan of this

It’s why he keeps getting knocked down crossing the road.

But in the same vein, “fair”. Whenever a Tory says it, it means someone’s going to die for no reason.

Or “fair” when motorists use it, to mean that when there is a safety initiative to try to stop drivers killing people, the same level of policing effort should be put into enforcing laws for those road users who don’t kill other people.

Super used a prefix to an adjective.

“OMG our meal was super tasty”
“Those shoes are super gorgeous”

Etc.

False feckers.

For sure. May be understandable although unacceptable from a non English speaking euro type but other wise it’s horrid.

I am guilty of both “for sure” and “super”. Though mostly because I spend so much time dealing with kids, I say “for sure” a lot when speaking to kids from overseas- english language tuition tends to be a little americanised anyway but also it’s a nice simple way of reinforcing a point.

@derek – you can (probably) thank, or blame, Cav for that; super happy or super excited.