Words that make you cringe

[novium]

there is a difference between:
"is this outfit alright?" "you look fine, is everything ready?"

and
"you so FINE!"
the second isn't so bad...

Quoting Han from 21:59, 1st Mar 2006
I hate the word "fine", usually when it's used about the quality of something rather than the way someone's feeling. Don't tell me I look 'fine' - have a bloody opinion!!

hehe

[hr]

"those who wish to be feared must inevitably be afraid of those whom they intimidate"
"In anger nothing right or judicious can be done."

[novium]

surely a better comparison is ate/rate as they are both short words and thus probably have similar accents?

Quoting Jason Dunn from 19:50, 2nd Mar 2006

Quoting novium from 18:17, 1st Mar 2006
surely 'ate' is pronounced 'eight'- and this has nothing to do with deciding to change around pronunciation.

What about climate? Oh, and primate rhymes with climate in the original (and in my opinion the preferred) pronunciation.

Cnut shirts might be just the thing for the may dip as students confront the glacial North Sea.

[hr]

"those who wish to be feared must inevitably be afraid of those whom they intimidate"
"In anger nothing right or judicious can be done."

[bdw]

Sorry for dragging this one back to life but these have been winding me up all week:

"negative growth" - why not save a syllable and just go for "reduction" or "contraction" instead?

"leverage" (vb) or "leverage off + object" (vb)- "use", thy days are numbered.

"up-skill" - can just "off-sod".


All yours, Hennessy.

[RedCelt69]

Wishing this thread had remained dead.

Never seen such pusilaminous whining in all my days.

To those people who complained about words being invented; every living language evolves. T'is the nature of the beast. Unless those people are genuine purists, in which case we should revert to the earliest known versions of English.

I can see it now.
"You speak Shakespearean English? Pah! Lightweight. Chaucerian English FTW!"
Or something.

As for those who complained about Scots words and/or Scots pronunciations... newsflash; St Andrews is in Scotland.

Back to the topic of "words that make you cringe":-

Gusset

Partly for how it sounds and partly for what it represents.

[LonelyPilgrim]

How many dead threads being resurrected does it take to equal one Christ? I so want Sinneranity to become a new religion...

Anyway, I detest, abhor, and disdain the use of "ballistic" in reference to someone's emotional state. If they are not literally flying through the air in a mathematically definable arc, I would much rather they be described as 'berserk'. I first noticed my cousin using 'ballistic' in early 2001 in this way, and thought he was an idiot... now the whole English-speaking world seems to use this expression. Consequently, I've concluded that everyone else is idiotic, too.

[RedCelt69]

If someone were to literally explode (rather than the metaphorical use of the term), their component parts would presumably travel on a ballistic trajectory.

For this reason (other than comical value... that's comical as in a Tom & Jerry type non-lethal explosion as opposed to, say, a suicide bomber type lethal explosion) I believe the phrase to have value. And a certain currency. It long predates your cousin's use of it

[LonelyPilgrim]

Be that as it may, the word, in that context, still makes me cringe to the same extent that "cunt" does - that being the only swear word that I can't abide.

[RedCelt69]

Cunt is about as offensive to me as hunt, aunt, punt or runt.

In and of themselves, no words are offensive. It all depends on context and the intentions of the person using them.

e.g.
Richard Pryor: "This nigger started hitting on my woman"
Neo-nazi: "This nigger started hitting on my woman"

Not only the same word; the same sentence. The level of offence (to me) is very different, from zero to quite a bit. Of course, both might cause offence to a feminist due to the phrase "my woman".

[777]

People who whine and make a song and dance about how offensive 'cunt' is seriously cheese me off. Climb aboard a different bloody bandwagon for God's sake. It's a word, it's not going to murder your granny or rape your sister is it? Get. Over. It.

Spoiler: show

CUNT

[Aureliano]

Now that the US elections are over, I have to admit that I simply can't stand the phrase or concept of the 'presidential ticket'.

It seems like for the duration of the run-up to the elections everyone and their dog, including amateur political pundits and BBC commentators, can't get enough of talking about things being 'on the ticket' to show how much they seem to know about American political jargon.

ugh.