Words

Words have always meant something to me.  From my earliest experiences reading, I have had a special affinity and respect for that little group of random squiggles.  The idea that a series of symbols can represent sounds and concepts that when brought together can transform into an unlimited number of completely unrelated things. It’s really incredible when you think about it.

But with great power comes the great potential to botch it up and those letters, words and phrases have been the victim of so many bad chop jobs they could cover an entire season of Botched.  And as an admitted logophile, it is almost physically painful to hear. 

So let me share with you my personal list of the most annoying words and phrases of all time. Let’s see if you agree with me:

#10-Surreal

This is actually a word that landed on my radar about five years ago which in my humble opinion was overused and abused like a rental car.  Promotions and advertisings were describing everything from trips to Disney World to hair dye as surreal.  Evening news anchors began surreal’ing everything.  Entertainers and movie stars began calling everything surreal.  Soon after, everything was surreal! 

What always confounded me was that no one else noticed just how superficial and shallow ninety-nine percent of the applications of the word seemed to be-a phenomena I truly found surreal. 

#9 Ima

A relatively new word to the modern language, is the new, hip way to say ‘I’m a’.  In terms of practical application however, Ima has replaced two perfectly good words with one that no matter how you phrase it continues to sound like you were the recent recipient of a lobotomy.  It’s not a contraction, it’s not an abbreviation, it doesn’t even save any letters or syllables.  All it did was knock out an apostrophe and a space-and my phone does that when it auto-corrects all the time!  

#8 Any sentence which uses text speech instead of proper grammar. 

Full disclosure: I am one of those fogies that texts in complete sentences.  I know that there are only a few of us out there and that the rest of the texting populace never hears from us because it takes us so damn long to write a message.  But that doesn’t mean that you can throw your BRB’s, ROTFL’s and OMG’s on my side of the fence.  They are annoying, and what’s worse, they make me have to re-set my brain and translate hardly-English into the Queen’s English-or whatever language I happen to be working in. 

Hard-earned taxpayer dollars were spent educating you to be able to spell at least at a third-grade level.  For the love of Pete, make your messages worth the money and keep your POOS to yourself!

#7 Furgot

This word usage makes absolutely no sense to me at all.  How many shots of Mad Dog do you have to slam to misspell this word?  What makes it worse is that there is not a spell check on the planet that won’t pick up on it, so someone would actually have to go in and override the program in order for it to show up in emails, posts and articles.  Somebody obviously forgot that!

And I’m still not sure what exactly the user is trying to say they forgot, their education or their attention span.  Either way, unless it’s hairy leave the fur out of it.

#6 Narcissist

The reigning champion of the most annoyingly overused word ever has got to be narcissist and for good reason.  Now used to describe not only ANY activity that involves oneself, it is also now the patented way for other people to complain when one does something they do not agree with-so the Narcissist is the one running around accusing everyone else of the offense. 

The fact remains that not everyone who does something for themselves is a narcissist, not everyone has the first clue what that really means, and those who think they do may want to re-examine the definition with themselves in mind.  It is really all about them, after all.

#5 Puke

I think the definition of this word is pretty clear.  I think it just sounds gross.

#4 Literally

Although probably a close second in the Most Overused Word contest, my objection to literally is not in its proper grammatical application but when its used as punctuation.  You know, when it is used to conclude a sentence for added effect.  As there are many words, phrases and marks that were already designed to do the same thing, I think that adding a completely unrelated word to the end of a sentence just for kicks is irritating-literally.

#3 Sentences without proper verbiage

“Dog’s there.”

“Where’s kids?”

“True dat!”

What the hell is that?  Do determiners like ‘the’ really hold you back?  Seriously, in the English language we are talking about a little one to three letter word (a, an, the) that helps clarify whether or not I’m communicating with someone who is sober.  It’s true, so find the kids and throw me a bone!

#2 See what I’m saying?

No.  No, I don’t see what you are saying.  I don’t drop acid and therefore do not have spontaneous hallucinations about seeing your words.  Nor are you on an episode of the Electric Company-if you are old enough to understand what I’m talking about.  Do you see what I mean?

And the Number One most annoying word/phrase of all time…

Do what?

For me, this phrase is the equivalent to being trapped in a trailer with nothing but Hallmark Christmas romance movies playing 24/7, it’s awful!  And what makes it even worse is when the phrase is used to ask someone to repeat something that didn’t have a damned thing to do with the speaker doing anything. 

Sometimes if the winner wants to show an immediate need to correct their lack of attention span moment, they will place emphasis on the phrase, “Do what now?” Now you just sound like you are in a hurry to sound stupid.

The proper phrases to use when you couldn’t bother to tear yourself away from The Price is Right long enough to hear what I had to say the first time are “Excuse me?”, “Pardon me?” or “What did you say?”  And drop the Do-what’s.  No one is going to want to do you.

I’m Jennifer Beck and I’m Jenuinely Jennifer

Writer, Researcher and Grammar snob!