Words (or phrases) that Fred uses, that drives me absolutely bonkers (and not in a good way):
1. Onesie, twosie. Used when describing one or two at a time instead of a whole bunch. Example: “We’re going to do them onesie, twosie instead of a bunch at a time, right?” What is he, three years old?
2. Cucurbit. This is a new one, and it drives me to the verge of homicide every single time. Example: “I think that might be a melon, I can’t quite tell. It’s definitely in the cucurbit family, though.”
3. Mepergan Fortis. I don’t know why he can’t just call it Demer0l or whatever the fuck other people call it. No, every time, both words. KILL. (PS: I don’t think we’ve actually had any Mepergan Fortis in the house since he had his shoulder operated on two years ago, but it still drives me nuts.)
What words or phrases do people use, that drives you nuts? Real people in real life, not TV people. Although that Rachel Ray “once around the pan” thing kind of annoys the ever loving shit out of me. Okay, you can include TV people. Web people. Everyone!
I seem to have lost my water bottle. It’s in the house somewhere, but fuck if I know where. It was 3/4 full and I’m thirsty. And yes, I have other water bottles in the fridge, but I want THAT water bottle. Wherefore art thou, water bottle?
Yesterday I was puttering around in the kitchen and turned around to see Joe Bob hunched in the middle of the kitchen rug.
“Whatcha doin’, Joeby*?” I said.
He turned a little, and I saw that he had a small bird in his mouth.
“Well, shit,” I said, and grabbed him. After a moment’s consideration I figured it would be best to carry him – bird still in his mouth – outside and then scream “LET IT GO! LET IT GO! YOU SHIT! LET IT GO!” At least that way, if the bird wasn’t too hurt to fly, it could fly off outside instead of around the house with me running after it.
I got to the back door and just as I opened the screen door, something happened that caused Joe Bob to start flailing wildly. I tried to hold on to Joe Bob, but he was flailing too wildly for me to keep hold of him, and he ended up falling a couple of feet onto the top step. He ran out into the middle of the back yard then sat down and began licking himself. I ran after him to make sure he was okay (he was) and then I looked around to see if I could see where the bird had gone. Both Joe Bob and Tommy were staring up into the top of the tree and after I looked around in the kitchen, dining, and laundry rooms, I decided that the bird had started to get away from Joe, flew off as I opened the door, and that’s what caused Joe to flail about.
Half an hour later, as I was walking from the bathroom toward the kitchen, I glanced into the computer room and saw every cat in the house huddled around something, staring intently.
Goddamn.
Somehow, despite the fact that the little bird was ON the floor, surrounded by a large number of cats, and had probably been fluttering around the house for a long time while I walked around with my head in the clouds, SOMEHOW the little bird was still alive. I pushed cats out of the way, picked the little bird up, opened the door to the side yard, and the little bird flew off.
Sometimes there’s a happy ending.
(Or, considering the blood he left behind on my hands, perhaps he flew off to die a slow, excruciating death somewhere. I prefer to believe he lived and will continue to do so for a good long time.)
*Could be, I suppose, “Joe B.”, but I think of him as “Joeby.”
I don’t remember what she was appalled by, but apparently it was quite SOMETHING.
Sweet little Zoe.
Kara, lookin’ smug.
Spanky is the Happiest! Boy! In! The! World!
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I sure do hate the hell out of housework.
2003: When I think of Judge Roy Moore, the phrase “Getting too big for his britches” comes to mind.
2002: If he didn’t do that creepy, over-intense stare all the time, he wouldn’t be so (you guessed it) creepy, but he does, so he is.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
I HATE it when I lose my stupid water bottle. Three floors in this house – what was I THINKING?!
I hate it when people say “acrost”. “Yeah, he lives just acrost the bridge.” O_O
The word is curcurbit, woman!
Or I apparently learned the wrong version. Hmph.
My husband drives me crazy with:
1. Ending sentences with the word “at”. “Where’s it at?”, “Where are you at?”… GAH!
2. “Costed”. “It costed $5.”
This is the man with two Master’s degrees and a PhD… I think he only does it because it drives me bonkers!!
the water bottle is under that thing where the spray and cats toys go.
I get SO annoyed when my husband calls me on my cell phone or at work, and after I say hello, the first thing he asks me is, “what’s up?” I DON’T KNOW — YOU CALLED ME! What did you want to tell me?? Or, I will be sitting peeling vegetables, or by the sink washing dishes, and he’ll come in and say, “whatcha doing?” Um, peeling vegetables? washing dishes??? AARRGGHHH…. Other than that though, he’s a keeper.
Rachel Ray drives me crazy with “Sammie.” We can’t stand that here. I actually do an example in my classes of what words we cannot use.
Ask not Axe Can I axe you a question?
Wolves not Woofs My dog is part Shepard part Woof.
Specific not Pacific
WalMart not WalMarts I am going to Walmarts.
Fixin to
The sentence that would kill me: We are fixin to go to Walmarts to get a pacific thing for my Woof.
Okay I am going to go think happy thoughts now.
I hate the word “kudos”, ya know when someone does a good job at something and they yell it out and clap, yuck! I also hate when young people talk and every other word out of there mouth is “like”, um yea like you know….
Thank you for including TV people… Rachel Ray – “give it a shimmy shake”. Gah! HATE!
I work with a woman who is apparently incapable of using the word “saw” when referring to something in her line of sight. No, it’s always “I seen this.” Hearing “ain’t” makes me want to scream as well. Freakin’ hillbillies around here.
Exscrews me instead of excuse me. I HATE! Or better yet someone says excuse you, instead of excuse me. I feel like saying sometimes (hey asshat, I’m not in your way, you’re in mine)
When the “TH” sound is pronounced as an “F” sound…
Earf instead of Earth. ACK!
Give me time, I’ll think of a few more but that’s my most hated thing.
I hate the extra “s” that gets added to the end of words such as anyway (anyways) and underwear (underwears – or if you’re from Massachusetts “undaweahs”). It’s funny what our little pet peeves are…it also drives me nuts when my husband says “six and one half-dozen” instead of just saying two things are the freakin same.
My husband says “Six of one, half a dozen of the other” as well … but the thing that sets my teeth on edge is he ALWAYS prefaces a store name with “the”. “I’m going over to the Walmart (the CVS, the Publix, the Lowe’s, etc.).” And he never, ever, ever says, “Goodbye”. He says, “Adios”. There’s not a drop of Hispanic blood in him.
Also: Just about anything that Rachael Ray says on a regular basis. And Kate’s, of “Jon $ Kate Plus 8”, “Lordy be!”.
Wow. I feel a little better, having gotten that out!
Dawn – you cracked me up!!!
Rachel Ray can bug me simply by opening her yap. I sometimes watch her show on mute.
When I met my hubby, he had a few words that made him sound like an idiot: Dest for desk (I know, right?), tooken for taken (WTF?), brooming for sweeping, cheft for chef, Trimphth for Triumph (he used to drive a TR7 back in the day), and the man cannot still pronounce sphincter. He says schfingter. And what is up with people pronouncing swag as schwag? I heard it on a radio commercial the other day, for crying out loud. Maybe that’s just a Wisconsin thing but it must stop now.
In the spirit of fairness, I tend to ask family and friends who stop by around supper time, “Djeet yet?” I don’t mean to sound like a hick, really.
Our office cleaning lady is a sweetheart but every day when I’d ask her how she was doing she’d say “Oh, same-o same-o!” And I’d clench my teeth really hard to still the nerves jangling in my head. It’s sad, because now I won’t ask her anymore. I just say “Hi!” and leave it at that.
Husband has the adorable (really) habit of screwing up metaphors. My favorite so far is “Let’s not beat a dead chicken!”
I will tell my husband something and he always says “for real?” After years of this I still say “no for fake”.
My first husband, bless his heart, would have a “good idear”. He was also incapable of NOT adding a “t” to the word “cliff”. “Careful, you’ll go over the edge of the clift.” I’m also driven to homicidal rage by people that insist on mispronouncing words they hear spoken CORRECTLY on a regular basis. If you regularly converse with people or watch even minimal TV, is it really possible that you don’t know that the “j” in jalapeno and fajita is pronounced as an “h”? Oh, and though I love Paula Deen, she drives me CRAZY with “pap-a-rika” and “chor-ee-zio” sausage.
Some other favorites:
Balentime’s or Valentime’s Day
Birfday
Liberry
Warsh
Instead of asking someone, “My car battery is dead, would you mind if I used my cables and your car for a jumpstart?” my husband picks the nearest stranger and says, “Can you jump me off?” And there’s always that minute of awkwardness where the stranger is trying to process what that means. Annoying.
It confuses me when people pronounce words ending in “a” as if they ended in “er”, like idea becomes ideer and Pamela becomes Pameler.
Quickest phrase to drive me batshit is “how you gettin’ on?”
my co-worker says this A LOT. Translated it means, “hey, I know you are finally taking a lunch for the first time in 3 months but I really really need those documents done because even though I have a college degree which means I make 3 times YOUR salary, I just can’t time manage myself and have totally crapped on this deadline. Again. By the way, I’m only going to give you part of the information now. Cryptically. I will then start phoning your extension every 10 minutes to ask if you are done yet. But once you are done I am going to make you repeat all those steps with that information I forgot to give you earlier (oops).”
“And whatnot” – my husband. Although after 13 years it’s starting to grow on me.
WiNsconsin – my oldest brother. The sad thing is we grew up right over the border in Illinois. How the hell can he still at 40+ years say Winsconsin?
The biggest of all is: believe you me. I couldn’t even tell you why, it just has always bugged me.
My boss where I work and a few of my co-workers like to say “download” a lot. What I mean is, they’ll say, “Let’s get together so I can download you about this project.” For one thing, if you’re giving information you’re probably really “uploading” it. If I was requesting and getting this info it would be a “download” but not the way they’re using it. But the main point is — I want to stab someone (them) every time they say it. I think it sounds absolutely ridiculous!!! It hits my spine every time and it’s all I can do not to scream. Not sure why I have such a strong reaction — besides the fact that it sounds so IGNORANT!!! Oh yeah, that must be why.
Paco calls movies “shows” like he’s a hick from the 1930s! It irritates the shit out of me plus it’s confusing! He’ll say, “What’s that show Meryl Streep’s in…you know..” and I’ll be like, “WTF? Meryl Streep was never on a television show that I know of,” and he’ll say, “Mamma Mia!” and I shriek “That’s a MOVIE NOT A SHOW, GOD!”
I cant stand when my husband tells customers to come over to his “Home Shop and Garage”…which one is it? gah! He also gets a word in his head and literally beats it into the ground such as “basically” and “whatnot” etc
Also everytime my brother calls me he says “I just wanted to touch base” that one drives me round the bend…Menopausal much?
At the present time, I can’t think of an annoying word. However, Rachel Ray ALWAYS annoys the shit out of me.
OK mine is a common one, but one of my former bosses said it all the time. Not a good experience so the phrase brings back not so good memories. Aaaannnddd the phrase is: Good, Good, Good. I just cringed typing it…
What’s funny is it’s the 3rd good. If you just say Good, Good to me – no problem.
Going forward, I would really like the phrase “going forward” to go the hell away.
And I don’t want to touch any freakin’ bases with anyone!
Arrgh, I hate when people use “you know” in the sentence, sometimes more than once. I have gotten to the point that I say “no, I don’t know” back to my husband, if we are both in a good mood. The other thing that drives me crazy is when someone, my husband perhaps, is telling a story with more than one male character and then just starts calling everyone “he”. I of course respond with “who he?”
It makes me sigh and roll my eyes when people say “anywhooo” instead of “anyhow” and eye-talian instead of Italian. On the other hand, I have no problem carrying on a memory of my oldest son. He was around 10 or so when he noticed a sign on a house we were moving into and asked, “What is so-licka-ting?” :o)
One thing I can think of right off the top of my head that my husband says all the time that drives me nuts is “Beins”, you know, like “Be-ins you’re here, we could do this”. I’m sure there are lots more, we’ve been married almost 40 years.
“Anyhoo!” yes – HATE that. “I’m just sayin'” is another one. It used to be a cute ending to a general life observation said by one of my very cute friends every once in awhile, but then another friend stole it and uses it ALL THE DAMN TIME and now I hate it.
And..umm..when did we step back in time Robyn? 🙂
Expresso. Gah! Also:
Prolly (for probably)
Stick a pin in it (i.e., “that’s an interesting idea – let’s stick a pin in it and revisit it later).
Axe for ask (already said above, but it bears repeating)
Oh, there are so many more, but it’s still early here and I don’t want to drive myself to drink before Noon.
Katrina (#23), that reminds me, people here who pronounce the neighboring state ELLEN-ois or worse, Illi-NOISE. My southern relatives always referred to my home state “WESS-consin.” You know, as opposed to East-consin, I guess. And OMG the corporate-speak nightmare! Does “drill down” want to make anyone else grab Black & Decker and head for someone’s skull? Or maybe just me. Gertie (#22), your last paragraph is hilarious!
‘That’s hot’… probably because every time I hear it…. I see and hear that vacant inane Paris Hilton.
Someone I work with uses the British pronunciation for literally (LIT-cherally) and I cringe every single time I hear it.
I live in Cincinnati and it drives me crazy when people pronounce it “Cincinnat-UHH.”
My dad is an old hillbilly from Tennessee and he says a few things that annoyed the crap out of me when I was a teenager growing up; but now that I’m older and long since moved out of the house, I can overlook them a lot more easily. He calls the mid-day meal “dinner” and the evening meal “supper.” But to me, the mid-day meal is “lunch” and the evening meal is “dinner.” He pronounces batteries “BAT-trees.” He calls the refrigerator the “ice-box.” He calls glasses that you drink out of “jars.” As in “how’s about a cold jar of pop?”
My pet peeve is, my mother and a lady at work pronounce Lowe’s as lowells.
I keep telling them that there is no L on the end.
Also wrastlin’ instead of wrestling
I don’t know, if I got a dog I’d want one that was part woof! On the east coast of Canada many people say “I seen”.We lived there when my kids were growing up. When my son was a young teenager he kept saying it all the time because I would get so annoyed. Then his best friend’s mother told him he was banned from their house till he knocked it off. God bless her.
By the way we also called the mid-day meal “dinner” and the evening meal “supper” but now I say “lunch” and “supper”.
TV weather casters who say: “…during the overnight.” Why can’t it just be “tonight” or “overnight”?
And “at this point in time,” instead of the much simpler “now.”
I love every single one of these comments.
I grew up thinking that Washington DC was Warshington DC, and lots of my relatives still say it. They also warsh their clothes.
The corporate speak is what gets me these days. There’s just no reason we need to either ramp up or drill down or download or huddle on this matter.
When people say lotto instead of lottery. Is lottery really such a difficult word?
Also, REALITOR. No.
As strange as it sounds, I can’t stand it when people say “refreshing”. Especially when a person asks “How is it?” and the other person responds “Refreshing!”. Weird, I know.
“It is what it is”
Really? I thought it was something different.
That’s the stupidest line ever!
Nucular.
[Note: According to my mother, the biggest meal of the day is properly referred to as “dinner”, and the smaller meal as “lunch” (if it’s at noon), or “supper” (if it’s in the evening). I knew you’d want to know that…]
I hate when singers say chew instead of you…
ie… rascal flatts “Everyday”
You could’ve bowed out gracefully
But chew didn’t…
My husband says “Sweeeet” in that long drawn-out way that young kids have. He’s 55.
‘Nuff said. 🙂
People who say “I Seen it” instead of “I Saw it.”
Paris Hilton and her “That’s hot.”
What everybody else said. 😀
I think your water bottle went the way of Feliway. Check under the furniture.
Agreed, Elizabeth. Nucular. And just about everything else that man says, along with his hunch-shouldered snickering.
My mother, God rest her soul, always referred to women as “females.” As if we were all animals. Men were sometimes “males”, too, and I always had to grind my teeth to keep from saying something mean.
I hate when Southerners talk about mashing on the gas. They mash buttons, too. It’s so destructive.
Reporters who think it’s a good summarizing technique to end stories with “…but one thing is certain…”
The word that throws me into a blind rage is “irregardless” – it isn’t even a real word! It is the nastiest of double negatives. I have a friend that I adore, but can only see for short periods of time because THAT word is her favorite filler/fall back word.
I have made it very clear to all of my students that use of that word will get them a 0 grade on papers until it is replaced with a proper word.
Ok, have to go breathe deeply now. I am all worked up.
Suposably.. irks me to the core – learn to pronounce the word correctly !
oh and axe…can i axe you a question?? huh??
just a snob i know 🙂
Ok, husband has this weird thing where he calls a chest of drawers a “Chesterdrawer.” Seriously, like it’s actually a formal name for a particular type of furniture – “oh, come and see our lovely antique Chesterdrawer.” Is it crazy that that irritates me? I think it might be a Southern thing. But I’m not American, so maybe it’s an American thing.
He also pronounces taut as “taunt.” That is kind of cute, though.
Denise! Thank you! “It is what it is” really sends me over the moon. My husband is from the south and will always pronounce insurance as INsurance. Or he will say on the phone “talk AT you later”. In the business world “Outside the box” makes me want to stomp the darn box to pieces.
This was fun Robyn, thank you.
Ugh, all business speak but especially WRONG business speak, “Let’s get together and touch basis.” Um, no.
My husband, when I am telling him something he doesn’t want to hear, will interrupt with, “OH! I’m aware!” It makes me want to kill him dead.
My boss drives me batshit crazy with this:
Me: Hey, I’d like to do X, Y, and Z.
Him: Yeah, let’s talk about that.
Me: ISN’T THAT WHAT WE’RE DOING!??!?!?!?!
It roughly translates to: “I haven’t figured out how I’m going to tell you ‘no’ so I’m buying time hoping you won’t notice.”
Ellen – I know! My husband also says “talk at you later.” Which I think is a bit, I don’t know, I mean, I would use that as an insult – as in “she talks at you, not to you.”
things he says that annoy the shit outta me:
1. “oh dear” after taking a long swig of a drink. usually said when we are talking on the phone and he’s at work and he’s hot (he works in a shop).
2. “you know what i mean?” he says this alllll the time and usually i just ignore him but sometimes i say, “no, i don’t know what you mean.”
and, i only know this ’cause i studied Shakespeare for a year… ‘wherefore’ means why. but maybe you MEANT to question the water bottle’s existence! 🙂
1. The word is CAR-A-MEL!!!!! Not CAR-MEL,when talking about food/candy, NOT CAR-MEL!!!!! When properly used, CAR-MEL is ALWAYS a PROPER NOUN!!!!—CARMEL!!!!! just GOOGLE it and see!!!!!
2.I am sick of “amazing” being used for just about anything good.
3.”Ya’ know” especially when it’s almost every other sentence.
4.”And I’m like,” is not “cool.”
Sammi
Rachael Ray and her damn EVOO! Then she always says “That’s extra virgin olive oil!” (insert perky giggle.) Why abbreviate when you’re going to explain it anyway EVERYDAMNTIME??!! She is beyond annoying.
I am giggling my ass off at these other pet peeves! This was a fun one, Robyn!
I can’t believe no one said “’cause that’s how I roll.” Or maybe they did and I skimmed over it. That phrase was kind of cute the first 10 times maybe, but now it just sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
YUM-O is pretty awful too. Any kind of cutsy-foo-foo speak is annoying in my book.
Yes, yes, yes….the word realtor pronounced as “reelitor” drives me insane….and the phrase “let me share this with you”….if you are not giving me something tangible then you are not sharing….you are TELLING me something….we are sharing nothing!!!!
Oh, I feel so much better now!!
Thanks Robyn!!
1) EVOO.
2) Yum-o.
3) The one that really gets to me and makes me want to scream is people writing “alot” as if
it were one word. It isn’t! It’s annoying, and worse, it’s a never-fail marker of illiteracy.
4) “Orientated”. (What’s wrong with “oriented”?)
5) Calling one’s breasts “girls”. It isn’t cute. It’s annoying.
6) Calling one’s vagina a “va-jay-jay”, which might have been funny the first time around just
because it was on TV and unexpected, but please, it’s just worn out and unfunny.
7) “Whatever” used as a dismissive verbal shrug.
8) “He’s like” or “she’s all” instead of “he said” or “she said”.
I can’t decide whether this is hilarious or horrifying. One the hilarious side: Touch basis? During the overnight? Good, good, good! On the horrifying side: How many people am I pissing off every time I open my yap?
I feel the need to comment on some of the comments, because I don’t feel like updating my own blog.
3&4. HUUUUUGE pet peeve: People correcting ME when THEY’re the ones who’re wrong… heh heh. (Must check and see if I posted about the actual raised-voices argument I got into with my son’s new asst principal over the words discreet/discrete.)
7. I used to wish my (now ex-) husband would call me just to see what was up; instead it was only ever that he was going to be “working late” (oh what a fool was I) or he wanted to let me know he had emptied out the checking account despite knowing that there were $900 worth of checks due to come through any day now. “What’s up” would have been a welcome relief.
8. I use “fixin’ to” all the time. It’s a Texas thing. Even this part of Texas, even for this non-native.
12. If someone’s telling you “excuse you,” it’s probably because they think you ARE in their way – or being rude, or whatever. “Exsqueeze me [or you]” used to bug the shit out of me, but then I met someone I really liked who used it, so it’s okay now.
18. Whether they use “same-o” or “same old” to say this, it irks me too.
My (now ex-) husband used to MANGLE phrases – “locks, stick, and a barrel.” “No bars held.” (He explained this to me. It means that you do something in such an all-out manner that it requires both hands, so you can’t be holding on to the bars, like you would in a jail cell. I tried to explain “no holds barred” and the wrestling connotation, BUT NO.) If I try to think of some of the others, I’m going to have to hunt him down and kill him, so I’ll stop.
21. I once left work with about 15 minutes to spare before my son’s daycare closed. Aaaand my battery was dead. In a moment of panic, I asked a (very handsome) coworker, “Frank, can you jump me please?” There were two seconds of silence, and he said, “Well, my wife’ll be pissed, but what the hell.”
30. I use “you know?” a lot, and I really do mean it. One of my great fears/monsters is that of not being understood, so I always want to make sure that whoever I’m talking to is, in fact, understanding me, and not get all the way to the end of a statement and find out that I’d lost them somewhere at the beginning.
I also use “just” or “it’s just that” a LOT, and it is starting to bug me.
42. The lady who sold me my house referred to herself, invariably, as a realitor.
When I was younger, the period of time between the Dark Ages and the, oh, Age of Discovery was the “meh-dee-vee-uhl” period. I still have trouble spelling it because my brain wants to pronounce it that way so I put the I in the wrong place.
44 & 54. I actually find “it is what it is” to be a helpful reminder sometimes. Because sometimes we (as people) DO think that things are other than what they are, or want them to be, and try to handle them accordingly, which is a recipe for insanity. Sometimes I have to remind myself that, yes, “it is what it is” and I have to accept it and deal with it as such, and not try to turn it into something else. It’s a sort of acceptance mantra for me, and helps keep things in perspective.
Having said all that, I think if someone were using it in any other sense, it might irritate me too.
45. Thanks! I like knowing that.
50. Are we not animals? Perhaps because I work with medical terminology, but I can’t understand why “female” or “male” would be inaccurate at all.
57. “Wherefore” to mean “where” is one of my peeves too (sorry Robyn!).
As for my other pet peeves, “ya’ll” instead of “y’all.” I recently read an entire novel set in the South where the author used “ya’ll.” It’s a contraction for “you all,” the missing letters/sounds are the “ou”, the apostrophe replaces the missing letters, hence “y’all.” “Ya’ll” would mean.. “ya will” or something.
Hubby. Hubs. Any “cutesy” shortening of the word. I have hated this probably since I was born; I cannot remember ever NOT hating it. It literally makes me itch. (Yes, literally literally.) DH is almost as bad (no itching), but DS and DD for son and daughter make my eyes want to bleed.
A former friend would tell stories like this: “So we’re on the phone for 20 minutes, and he kept talking about his job, the boss did this, the secretary did that, the manager did the other thing, blase blase blase.” (I can’t make the little accent thing over the e.) And she had to go to Walmart to get a few things before she was admitted to a local hospital, Las Palmas – oh, excuse me, I mean Walmarks and Loppa Llamas. She did none of these things intentionally, and was entirely immune to correction. OH! And when she got out of the hospital, they gave her oxygen pills, but she didn’t want to take them because oxygen is addictive. That’d be Oxycodone, yeah.
But the absolute worst of the worst? My father will ask me “How are you doing?” and when I answer, “All right,” he always says, “JUST ‘all right’? Not fantastic, not fabulous, not wonderful, not super-duper?” And I want to murder him on the spot. A few weeks ago I did finally snap and say, “NO, none of those things, ‘just all right,’ and as someone who suffers from depression your own self I should think you’d understand that sometimes being ‘just all right’ is something to be thankful for. If my personal level of emotional contentment isn’t good enough for you, then stop asking me about it,” or something to that effect. He hung up on me, but he hasn’t asked me how I’m doing since then, so that’s a win.
I hate when people say, “Not for nothing”.
“Not for nothing, Anne, but I paid alot of money for that carpet that you just puked on.”
When my bf calls me and then says “well, let me go” like I’m keeping him from something. He called me!
Love Patrice and KATG, but when she says “in the sense” or “in the context” it drives me a little nuts.
Mine’s a tossup between the pronunciation of closet as closick and chimney as chimbley – I also hate folks who say actually every 10 seconds. *stab*
As was said before:
Orientate. Apparently a real word but, in my opinion, a totally unnecessary one. And…
Irregardless. Double negative and usually used for no reason even if they were to get it right. Oh yeah, and…
All y’all. Double plural.
And I totally agree with all the Rachel Ray comments. Actually, the thing I hate most is not so much what she says but how she acts. Everything she eats/drinks/smells/steps in gives her an orgasm of taste sensation! Gawd!!!!
Oh, and one more. Seer-dee. Which is supposed to be Saturday! Yes. It’s been said by at least two people in this world. Seek them out and destroy them. There will be a reward.
There’s more but anyhoo… I’ll download you all on it later. Isn’t that hot?
I absolutely HATE “my bad!” You’re bad what? Isn’t it supposed to be “my fault”, as in “I’m sorry that’s my fault’ Or “my mistake”. I have no clue, but it just drives me crazy!
I hate “incentivize!” So much so, that I had to put a definition on Urban Dictionary…
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=incentivize
(mine’s the 2nd one)
Agh. No particular expressions, but when he’s feeling uptight about something or he’s stubbed his toe, or really, just feeling put upon? He SIGHS. Incessantly. SIGHSIGHSIGHSIGHSIGH. Pained sigh, irritated sigh, sad sigh… He has them all down.
I want to shove a cork in his esophagus when he starts up. SERIOUSLY.
Oh no, wait. There is one. He can’t call the car ‘the car’. Or the truck ‘the truck’. It’s always ‘the vehicle’. What’s with THAT???
Anywho. It might have already been said up there (I’m not reading 71 comments to find out), but hearing or reading that word makes me crazy. Is it even a word?
This is a fun topic, Robyn! I can’t stand when people use “all of the sudden” instead of all of a sudden. Drives me crazy!! Also, when “voila” is pronounced or spelled “walla” – that makes me cringe.
I want to scream everytime my husband says “my bad” when he makes a mistake or does something stupid!! He also says “pernament” instead of permanent and “ademnant” instead of adement. It makes me want to scream… but I’ve given up on correcting him… I just breathe deeply and count. Well, except for when he says “my bad”… I say “No, you made a mistake!! Quite saying that!!” Grrrrrrrr…. =)
When my 16 year old says “I gotta drop a deuce” (which means to take a shit)
Another one JUST cropped up: Baseball announcers who say “ribby” for RBI. Makes my head hurt.
OK, I thought beating a dead chicken was funny, but I’ll be giggling for a week over “locks, stick and a barrel”. Guy Ritchie would’ve had a hard time working *that* into a movie plot.
“Anyhoodle.” An even more annoying version of the already annoying “anyhoo.”
Anyone who says they are “tasked with” something. As in, “My mother has tasked me with emptying the garbage.” Ah, shut up and take out the trash already. Task is not a verb.
I’m way too much of a wimp to own carniverous animals. This is why I keep bunnies. I would’ve cried!
I hate: “Come here a minute!” Mmmkay. “For” is one syllable, people, and you sound much less stupid saying “come here FOR a minute”
Also: “that’s so gay!” for obvious reasons.
After breakwast, I went to WalMarks and bought raimey noodles and slim-fat. The I felt like messican, so I ate dinner at Taco Hell and odered injalados, casahdeeahs, and sawsa, but couldn’t decide if I wanted a margarito or a soda.
Just shoot me now…..
My former coworker would say SALmon as opposed to just plain old salmon. Oh and she’d say “pacific” instead of specific.
I also hate when my dad says “ain’t” and “nothin'” Gah! You’re flippin’ 66 years old, learn how to speak correctly!!
Oh and I watch QVC {ie. the home shopping channel} way too much cause the one host says “It’s SO Madison Avenue” about every damn thing she presents.
LOL I love this topic! My husband (who is from OKLAHOMA) likes to pronounce things with a Scottish accent simply because he has relatives in Scotland. For example, instead of saying he’s going out — he says, “I’m going oooot.” Or he’ll call someone a “bonnie wee lass.” That’s when I really want to shoot him.
People who say ideal instead of idea, pronouncing salmon SALmon, (read that one above) my husband adding an s to Walmart, Kmart, etc. My mom says don’t get peeved, instead of mad, which drives me crazy. Saying prolly instead of probably, saying I seen instead of I saw…. and I’m sure there are a bunch more, which when I think of them, I’ll let you know. LOL.
I really hate when people say “my bad”, and “I’ve never been”, as in… “I really want to go to Paris. I’ve never been.” Add that fucking “there”, people!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow! Apparently we are all walking around in a state of repressed rage because of the stupid shit people say.
My husband will often answer the phone by saying “Jell-ohhhhhh?” which drives me crazy but I don’t say anything because it seems awfully nit-picky of me to complain about the way that someone answers a phone. You know? What can I say. It is what it is. Anyhoo.
My father had many classics as I was growing up. For instance, he used to answer the phone in one of two ways, both of which consisted of one long word. There was the peppy-telemarketer-on-too-much-coffee version (Yessssshelllllo!), and then there was the crochety-get-off-my-lawn version (Yeahwhatisit?). I dreaded the times I was expecting a phone call and couldn’t get to the phone first.
He also began every meal at the dining table with “May the blessings of Buddha be upon you” and a “aren’t I so clever” snicker. It drove me crazy, but it quite possibly irritated my grandmother more, since she was a minister’s daughter…
My husband has a little gem too. He’s Canadian and pronounces the word “been” as “bean”. It seems to be a Canadian thing, and it just irks me for some reason (no doubt an irrational one). Gah!
I cannot tolerate ‘irregardless’
People saying they “gifted” something to someone drives me insane!
They’re “good people”.
Using the word female to describe a woman.
“I could care less”. No dumbass, you could NOT!
“It’s all good”
Oh…who knew we were all so annoyed? LOL
I hate it when people say “an historic ”
as opposed to “a historic or an aneurysm” That’s the way I was taught , back in the old days.
When did the rules change?
I live in Arkansas , the other day I heard my waitress say “I done did everything.”
My husband is from Ohio and they (his family) call a vacuum cleaner a “sweeper” every time I hear it I wonder “who is this OLD man?”
“come with” for example, “I’m going to Wal-Mart, do you want to come with?” AGHHHHHHHHHHHH. You didn’t complete the sentence!!!
I’ll second what Lisa says. I have a coworker who pronounces reconcile – reeeeconcile. not ree, people. ruh. grrrr. and she’s heard everyone else in the free world say it the proper way and still insists on misprouncing it.
My mom hates when people add, “and such” to their statements. such what? really?!
I however, love it when people mess up the words to songs. The song cotton-eyed-joe was messed up twice by an old friend…
Ruby Red Lips = Really Red Lips
Cotton-eyed-joe = hot dog joe!
hee
Drives me crazy when people pronounce the “t” in “often”. It is silent!!!!
Most of my pet peeves are work-related. I hate any sort of internet-related business jargon – like “let’s talk about this offline” if a side topic comes up in a meeting. What the hell? We weren’t speaking online, we were speaking in person, dipshit. Or “do you have the bandwidth” meaning do you have the time to work on something. Actually, most work jargon irritates the crap out of me, like “best in breed” or referring to a power point presentation as a “deck”, or “circle back with” to mean get back to someone.
My husband hates the overuse of the word “interesting” which I am definitely guilty of.
When someone asks me to borrow my “ink pen.” How many other kinds of pens are there? And when someone wants to “conversate” with me, I about scream.
I had a high school English sub read “C’est le Vie” as “Sest live” (ling ‘i’ as in alive) which made the bunch of us go “…Seriously? Sest Live? WTF?” However, ever since then I’ve said it ‘Sest Live’ because it makes me giggle. I give myself a pass because I know it’s pronounced “Say la vee”, unlike the sub.
I also say ‘wala’ because it makes me giggle. WALA!
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say things the way that they would shorten them on paper even though it isn’t any shorter when spoken. For instance B-day and X-mas. Just say ‘Birth’ or ‘Christ’ already. GOD! It gets stupid silly when playing on-line games because everyone shortens everything to strings of letters. “U tank or DPS BRD?” “…ummmm…Maybe? Can I have a little more context so I can figure it out?”
I also hate “Chi-town” for Chicago.
My husband who is a southerner always says “drawling” instead of “drawing.”
Look at the pretty drawling our daughter made!
He even spells it that way when writing. It makes me want to stab my eardrums!
Tooken. I tooken went to the store. I think it is supposed to be I took and went to the store HOWEVER even that is WRONG. Why can’t you just say I went to the store??
I have a coworker who has her MBA and says the word IDEAR. No, it’s an idea. Gah!
1.) “Let me give you a for instance…” when someone wants to give an explanatory example of something.
2.) “Hubby” for husband. *shudder*
3.) Spelling “definitely” as “definately.”
My husband adds the phrase “n’ so…” to the end of many sentences, as if to suggest there is more coming, but there isn’t. It’s like the Mississippi version of saying “know what I mean?”
For example, a conversation with his mother (who does it as well) “Yeah, and we’ll be flying into the Memphis Airport and then driving down, n’ so….”
Other pet peeve: All y’all. I can handle y’all as a general rule, but “all y’all” drives me INSANE.
I thought of others.
In prayer, (the casual chat with Jesus style of prayer), the word “just,” as in: Jesus, we just ask that today you be with us, and just look upon us, and know that we just love you. Amen.” I used to count them as a hobby during our office staff meetings. Got to 16 once. About JUST had a cow.
Flusterated. It’s flustered, or frustrated. Not flusterated.
1. Boughten instead of BOUGHT — Example: This purse was boughten at Walmart.
2. Acrost instead of ACROSS
3. Irregardless instead of REGARDLESS
4. Prostrate instead of PROSTATE gland
5. The phrase, in terms of…blah, blah, blah
6. Idear instead of IDEA
Numerous others but the above came to the forefront imediately.
My weirdo ex-husband says ‘fleshfood’ instead of ‘meat’. Sounds a bit too cannabalistic for my liking. Oh and even though he’s 36, he still pronounces chimney as chimley. Okay, I admit it, everything about my ex-husband irritates the crap out of me…
And my pet pet peeve in blogs is when people spell lose, as in I need to lose weight, as LOOSE. Sure, my fat is pretty loose and jiggly, but I want to lose it, not LOOSE it!
And people who start sentences with the word AND. HAHA Just joking, btw.
And someone mentioned people saying “Lotto” in stead of ‘lottery”. Well in NZ, our national lottery game is called Lotto 🙂
I think that’s it.
My mom drives me nuts with the way she pronounces some words. She can’t say Elvis or elbow- she says Alvis and albow. Or hills, she says heels. And she says Itly instead of Italy.
I hate the phrase “Thats how I/we roll”- WTF?
The husband calls everyone a nitwit. I hate that word. It’s so stupid.
I hate when people use the wrong form of a word, particularly sell/sale: “I am going to sale my old books on ebay” NO IT’S SELL!!!!!
Also when adults use goofy word spellings/pronounciations… like “me likey”..what are you two?
This one drives me nuts! There is a car named Jaguar – why oh why do people say either JagWIRE or JagWAH. Huh?
Oh amen on JagWIRE!!! Makes me downright hostile.
I work for a Realtor who pronounces it Real-I-tor *and* says “flustrated” – aaauuughhhh!!! If he wasn’t such a cool boss, I would lose my mind. But not “loose” my mind – ha!
I had a coworker once who used “rather than that” instead of “other than that”. Almost daily. Still can’t figure out how she worked it into so many conversations…
I think Elayne and I worked with the same woman who said “blase, blase, blase” in place of “blah, blah, blah”. Oh my brain!
“I could care less” – oh no no no no no no
Pronouncing the S in Illinois – I should be able to charge a fine every time I hear it!
We have a local weather person who pronounces temperature as “temp-a-chur”. Don’t they still teach a neutral accent in broadcasting school? Did she miss that semester?
And my husband, bless his heart, pronounces apricot as “AY-pricot”. With that many consonants at the beginning, it simply cannot be a long A.
The End
I’m read this post late…but have to add my 2 cents
With my husband…
I hate when he says “ice box” instead refridgerator. He was not even around for the icebox days
or when he will say Home Depot like Home De-pot on purpose
I cringe at work when someone says “Are we having fun yet??!!!” when they pass my desk
When someone pronounces pumpkin as punkin
When someone prefaces something with “I love her DEARLY, but…” they usually can’t stand the person!!
ps…I am also guilty of some of the pet peeves of others 😉
I say “hubby”
1. Anyone who abbreviates California as “Cali”, spoken or written. Makes me want to commit bloody, bloody murder!!!
2. I deal with a company in NC, and one of their project leaders always says, “might could,” as in, “Oh, we might could do that.” Worse still is that I pick up little colloquial sayings like that in no time flat, and now I say it in my head all the time.
3. Those that mix up “e.g.” with “i.e.” Argh! It’s the Latin student in me, but “e.g.” means “for example” and “i.e.” means “that is” and is used more as a clarifying statement.
4. “Anyways” drives me bat-shit insane. I got schooled by my mother when I was 7 years old on that one, who told me that my grandmother would flay me alive if she ever heard me say that. I never did understand how my cousin managed to escape such a fate, cuz she tacks on that “s” like it’s going out of style. Oh, and my cousin’s a kindergarten teacher.
Peeves:
1) There’s a commercial for a place called The Jewelry Exchange, and the announcer has always pronounced it “Jew-ree Exchange”. Drives me nuts.
2) “Di’int” instead of didn’t. (As in “Oh no, she di’int!” Where’d the “D” go???)
3) H-town instead of Houston.
4) “Naw-lins” instead of New Orleans.
And I always call my hubby “my hubby”. I can’t help myself. 🙂
Sethra, I despise Naw-lins”!!! Makes my teeth itch! It does not make you sound like a local to pronounce it this way.
Just had one yesterday that is a constant irk. After a dozen years in IT, I have lost track of the number of times I’ve heard a PC called a modem and a modem called an “Imodium.” WTF? Often by the same people. I don’t understand why they can pronounce it correctly in one context but not another. Thwack
My husband has a few too…. gaz – as in My car needs more gaz (his mom and dad say it like that too!) and draw – as in Look in the draw in my desk. AARRRGGGHHH!! Oh, and he calls paper towels “scott towels” I don’t even buy Scott.
Ohh! I forgot “all the sudden” What the hell does that mean?
It’s “all of a sudden.” *cringe*
Oh dear Emily – I’m coming down on the other side of that one. I can’t stand it when people pronounce it appricot, as if it had two “p”s instead of one. A double consonant would shorten it, but as it is, it’s definitely pronounced “aypricot.” At least it is in my house, if you don’t want a three hour lecture.
Oh, and California Robin – I know what you mean. I hate it when people shorten the name of a state, city, or town, by adding an “ie” sound to the end of it. I spent some time on Martha’s Vineyard a few years ago, and there’s an obnoxious group of people who insist on shortening Chappaquiddick to “Chappy.” I mean, what are they, five?
My boss is great at her job (she’s a hairdresser) but I swear she likes to mispronounce things just for shits and giggles. She will say “gift ca-tificate” and “supposably” and “satisfication”.
My other is when people say “I could care less” instead of “I couldn’t care less”.
As well, the “axe” thing and the “fustrated” also drives me mad. And when people add an “s” as in “so I says to her”. My other co-worker likes to use “ain’t got none” alot, as well as “I seen it”.
I have a degree in english, and spend alot of time in my salon correcting peoples speech. It drives them nuts, but I cannot sit and listen to the english language get so horribly mutilated.
The term “prairie dogging,” used to describe the sensation of having to move your bowels (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PRAIRIE+DOGGING) drives me out of my ever-lovin’ mind.
I forgot one yesterday.
“Can you see what I’m sayin’?”
No, I cannot. If I could see what you are saying, I would be reading.
When I lived in AR, I had a friend that said “Youin’s” all the time. “Where are youin’s goin’? I would respond, “Wein’s is goin’s to the storein’s.” She never caught on.
it bugs me to no end when men refer to their wife as “the wife”. she has a name, use it! or just say “my wife”.
also, when non-medical people use medical abbreviations for words like “meds” or “scripts”.
spelling the abbreviation for etcetera like ect. it’s etc!
I really don’t like abbreviations that much at all, to tell the truth. just say the whole word.
I had a boss that was evil in too many ways to be counted. The word “Brilliant!” and the phrase “You’re a star!” now cause me to cringe. Certain regional british accents can actually induce stomach cramps.
Ooh, Jess, you reminded me how much it irritates me when people use specific drug names. Like saying “I’m on oxycodone,” instead of just saying “I’m on painkillers.” Nobody cares what you’re on, for Pete’s sake – it doesn’t make you sound smart.
Ok, this just really wrecks my head. My husband’s stepmother says “twiced” instead of twice. I mean, it’s like she wants to be even more annoying than she already is.
Okay…the ex-(oh thank you lord!)son-in-law “I’m juss saying…” (oh, please DON’T) and “hold on” when you want him (and now the grandchildren) to answer something you just asked, or need them to come right away. I long to say…”I’ll hold on…to something that will really hurt!”
I used to work with a woman who pronounced jewelry “joolery”. And my dad says “Chicargo” and “Hawaya” instead of Chicago and Hawaii. But it’s my husband who incites my wrath the most, poor Southern guy that he is, when he says bedroom SUIT instead of bedroom SUITE, and INsurance, and insists on calling fuel gasoline instead of just gas, like the rest of the world.
Oh yeah…my husband insists he has to check his “electronic mail”, not email! And he insists he’s “from Iowa” where he lived for 20 years with his first wife…he was born in Illinois, and has lived here for over 20 some years with THIS wife…I see red every time he says it! As far as I can see, he’s “from” Illinois, just like I am from Wisconsin (cause that’s where I was born, and where I lived till I married a man “from Illinois”).
Hmmm, I pronounce apricot with a long “a.” I looked it up, either is acceptible, and the short a version is always listed first.
ap·ri·cot [ap-ri-kot, ey-pri-] –noun
1. the downy, yellow, sometimes rosy fruit, somewhat resembling a small peach, of the tree Prunus armeniaca.
2. the tree itself.
3. a pinkish yellow or yellowish pink.
4. Also called wild apricot. Chiefly South Midland U.S. the maypop vine and its fruit; passionfruit.
Oh well.
I also can’t stand when people say “meds” instead of medicine. “I need to take my meds.” Aaaaagh! Don’t know why it bothers me but it does. We usually say we need to take our pills.
And on cop shows, “perps” and “vics” for perpetrators and victims. Just stop it! It’s not cute, clever or interesting. “He’s your perp.” Hate it!
Also, carmel and caramel. It’s acceptible to pronounce it both ways, I looked it up too.
caramel |ˈkarəməl; -ˌmel; ˈkärməl|
noun
sugar or syrup heated until it turns brown, used as a flavoring or coloring for food or drink : an apple dipped in caramel | [as adj. ] caramel ice cream.
• the light brown color of this substance : the liquid turns a pale caramel | [as adj. ] a caramel sweater.
• a soft candy made with sugar and butter that have been melted and further heated.
ORIGIN early 18th cent.: from French, from Spanish caramelo.
I love “fixin to,” “come with,” and so many other regional and personal idiosyncracies. Language is a living thing! Let us all not sound alike!
Okay! I am in tears! So many things too little time to correct! LOL! DH drives me nuts with so many things like refi instead of refinance SAY.THE.WHOLE.BLESSED. WORD! Then there’s the “I grew up in the depression era words” Lackadaisical and Scalawag. Are you 80? I ask him. THEN there’s the constant “You all right?” NO! I’m insane from all you yapping! GO AWAY! heh! 🙂
My church had a minister who pronounced ‘you’ as ‘joo’. Like nails on a chalkboard. You can imagine the benediction – “May the Lord bless joo and keep joo…”. GAH!
I hate when someone is telling a story or whatever and feel the need to use 500 though’s and um’s. But they never use though they use tho.. Even worse is “and tho um you know”.
To everyone who used a dictionary to justify their pronunciation…
Dictionary (at least in English) pronunciation guides are mere descriptions of how the words are commonly pronounced. They are not prescriptive, that is they are not saying how they SHOULD be pronounced. There’s probably no real authority on how any of these words should be pronounced except principles of English spelling (comparing them to other similarly spelled words) or etymology (word origin, e.g. a word taken from Japanese like “karate” should still be pronounced somewhat like the original) or even simple reason (such as my objection to “orientate” – that “orient” does just fine and “orientate” undoubtedly comes from a “mis-rooting” of the word “orientation”).
Ok, we can all get back to freaking out over these things… LOL
The thing my husband says that drives me bonkers is calling every excursion out of the house an “errand” as if it is some urgent activity he must complete! Uh, honey, you’re just going to Lowes, that is NOT an ERRAND! (Yes, I know technically it is an errand, but why can’t he just say “I’m going to Lowes” instead?)
My daughter has a terrible habit of saying “I know” everytime I try to tell her something, even if she doesn’t know! I wanna smack her when she says it! I always say “No, you DON’T know!”
My ex-husband use to use the phrase “The point is…” constantly, especially when I corrected him on something. I wanted to say “The point is you’re an idiot!”
When someone says that another person ‘took’ a heart attack — i.e. Poor Joe, he took a heart attack last night. I am pretty sure that if you offered a heart attack to anyone, they certainly would not ‘take’ it! My in-laws use this phrase for anything medical — took a heart attack, took a stroke, etc.
Once I got Rachael Ray’s annoying comments out of my craw, (ohh–I hate that expression too!) I was able to come up with some other non-Rachael Ray pet-peeves.
1) “Frisco” instead of San Francisco. We can always tell you’re not from here when you say it! Makes you sound like you’re trying to be cool and you’re not when you say this.
2) “Cali” (someone else’s peeve too–see above) Sounds ridiculous!
3) My grandmother who was in her 80’s came to California to visit for the first time and was attempting to pronounce various cities/towns listed on road signs. Vallejo became Valley-joe. Salinas was Sa-LINE-us. To help her pronounce them correctly, we came up with some very asinine rhymes for her—“Only penis in Sal-EEN-us, No Vag-EYE-nus in Sal-EYE-nus”. I miss her like crazy (died in 1994) and wish I could drive her to Valley-Joe and Salinas just for shits and giggles!
4) I hate when someone says “Know what I’m saying?” after every thing they say. Example: “I went to the grocery store last night.” “Know what I’m saying?” (Me: Uh, no. Could you please elaborate? They do not have grocery stores on my planet. WTF!!!) Rappers seem to be the worst offenders. Then my teenaged kids!
Ok, that was cathartic! I feel so much better now!
One more. Those little colored wax sticks children use to shade in drawings, Crayons? There is an “ay” in the middle of that word. “ay” has a long A sound. Cray-On. It should NEVER sound like the word “Crown”. Never. Never. Never.
Yeah, I gotta agree with M.R. here in a way, because even though I’m not American, I have a great fondness for Americanisms. And even though “ain’t” may not be an actual word (although according to Bill Bryson it was a perfectly acceptable contraction of “is not” or “are not” until some idiots at the end of the nineteenth century decided they had to make everything standard), it’s colloquial language that a lot of people were brought up on, and therefore, in my book, perfectly acceptable as long as you don’t put it in a job application or company wide email.
(And yes, I split an infinitive somewhere in there, but I don’t care, because apparently that’s another pointlessly stupid rule made up by people who decided that because you can’t split infinitives in Latin, you shouldn’t be able to in English either.)
I must admit, I’m from New Zealand, and tend to put “r”s on the ends of words when they follow each other. So some how, pizza and beer become “pizzerandbeer.” And a American friend of mine told me once that it’s not “pizzer.” But that’s just how I talk, and if I tried to change it, I’d probably only sound really weird.
I used to pronounce mischievous mis-chee-vi-us until I realized it’s mis-che-vous, and I notice everyone else does too. The words prolly and ‘puter make me cringe, especially if you’re over 12. In writing, loose for lose distracts me. A good friend was always trying to “loose” weight, and I kept picturing all this wrinkled skin. My dad was from New England and always said “idear”. And my grandma was from Kansas and “warshed” her clothes. Regionalisms and accents don’t bother me; I find them charming. However, it makes me sad the way grammar is going to hell, especially when professionally edited and published. Change is inevitable, but lately with the over-reliance on computer “checking” programs, it’s happening way too quickly.
Oh! And I used to think only stupid people said “them” instead of “those”, until I met my very bright late husband (he was from rural Michigan). And for the love of god, does the period go inside or outside the quotation marks? I can’t friggin remember!
My husband makes me crazy when he says foot instead of feet. Like “I need a board about 10 foot long.”
My dad calls chapstick “lip ice”, and rather than saying “hey, look up there”, it’s “hey, look upair”
Wow!! This has more comments than an internet troll feuding with other commenters! I know these have been said but I’ll add to the mix:
1. Pretty much anything that comes out of Rachel Ray’s mouth
2. “Axe” instead of “ask”
3. “I seen…”
4. “It’s all good”. I’m even at fault for doing this sometimes. But seriously?? It’s NOT ALL GOOD.
Prostrate instead of prostate. 😉 Drives me totally insane.
I’m late to the party, as usual, but I must add my two cents because this is great.
RE: Rachel Ray. Her “EVOO” thing makes my skin crawl. She explains it almost every time she uses it (“that’s extra virgin olive oil”) so why bother? It’s not like it sounds cool, or is fun to say, so give it up already.
TWO men in my life have done the same thing with the word “appreciate.” They say “a-PRISH-she-ate” instead of “a-PRE-she-ate.” So wrong.
On the other end of things, I’d like to add that my father has always referred to paper towels as “towling” paper, which I think is funny.
I hate “I know, right?”
I had never heard it until my teenager said it. I just looked at her in horror. I asked where she heard that little gem from. She didn’t know.
And now, I hear it EVERYWHERE!
When people say “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes.” Arrggghh!
My husband says “chest of draws” instead of “chest of drawers,” and even after 19 years of marriage I’ve never mentioned how much it sets my teeth on edge. Choose your battles, right?
I really need to add one that makes me homicidal – my best friend and her husband constantly say “It is what it is”
My inner conversation: “AHHHHHHH – of course it is what it is, what the fuck else would it be other than what it is!!”
My mom describes Asians as “Or-ree-EH-ul.”
My mom-in-law call vitamins “The Minrels.”
Instead of the word “themselves” my husband says, “theirselves.”
My daughter calls the killer whale, Shamu, “SHUH-moo”, and Spiderman, “SPIDER-mun.”
Once I was at a museum and my husband asked if we could do something (I can’t even remember what) and I responded, “Okey Dokey Pokey!” A woman spun around and strongly expressed her disgust that I said that, and to a grown man! It still makes me smile to think that I could make someone soooo affronted!
How about “dreckly” meaning later. “I’ll call you back dreckly.”
Also, I have a friend that says “basketti” for spaghetti and “vodika”
for vodka. Too funny.
Ok, all of the above, and:
1. Specific, NOT Pacific (that’s an ocean)
2. Tack, NOT Tact (as in, I’m taking a different tack)
3. Ask, NOT Arks (Aussie version of your axe)
This is really a lot of fun.
Um-ber-ella (as sung by Rihanna)
Someone asking to ‘lend’ something from me.
Anyone mentioning ‘grabbing’ something to eat.
And the word ‘moist’. I hate that word. It makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck just typing it.
God, I’ve been adding all these annoying words and phrases to my lexicon and working diligently towards integrating them into my vocabulary since 1995. You’re welcome.
“I reckon”
“fixin’ to”
and a whole lot of “ain’t”s
I have learned quite a bit from studying spanish, though, and have taken to heart that the greater number of negative words you use to describe something gives you a clue as to how badly you do not want something, or how terrible that thing must be.
That said, it is “Ask” (not axe) and “Library” (not lieberry) and “Rottweiler” (not rockweiler) and and and.
Acrost. NOOK-YOU-Lar, it’s fucking NUCLEAR, not Nucular. People who say ON, instead of UN. Like On-fair instead of unfair. My husband does that and I want to throttle him. In fact, I am merciless in making fun of him whenever he says it because apparently I am that mean.
I’m really late to this party, and I have to agree with many of the things already listed above.
I have one to add: breasts or breast-uss when referring to a single breast. “I’ve got a pain in my right breast-uss”