The Figure of Speech That You Dislike The Most

[KassieMac]

How about when people say, "Southern (Northern, etc.) accent"? That bothers me a lot. It is a Southern dialect, not accent. An accent is when someone who does not natively speak your language pronounces the language with vowels, consonants and inflections that are familiar to the native language. For example: a French accent or a Russian accent, but a Canadian dialect or Aussie dialect.

Maybe this is just me, so I'd like to hear if you guys think I'm making things up. I always thought 'accent' referred to the different pronunciations of the same word, where 'dialect' refers to different word choices or grammatical structure. For example:

"That car needs to be washed" v "That car needs washed"
"I'm about to leave" v "I'm fixin to get ready to go"
"I think ..." v "I reckon ..."

Is this just me, or does anyone else use those terms differently?

 

[buckyboy14]

That's what I always took them to mean.

I don't like the term, usually used in sports, "They're right back in it" when referring to the score. If you're not "in it," you're "out of it," and if you're out of the game, you can't get back in the game.

 

[Loomis]

This is one I sometimes hear from people who definitely should know better. Instead of saying lend me a dollar they will say "borrow me a dollar." Someone definitely should take the time and learn them to speak proper English.

 

[Ylva]

I also think the greeting "hi how are u?" "Oh fine." Is a waste of time. If u don't really want to know how om doing u can still he polite by saying "hi have a good day! " if we are supposed to be honest to people and not lie, then y do we have lie in any social situation? Sorry for any typos, my phones autocorrect is bad and I can't fix it.

That! Right there! That's a script, and boy do they get mad if I go off it.

 

[Ylva]

I hate when people say that too! There's an actual quote about it by Neale Donald Walsch, "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone".
I personally don't agree with it. There's people who's "comfort zone" is doing things like sky diving and other extreme sports (which wouldn't be my comfort zone). What do those people do to get out of their comfort zone? Clean dishes? Vacuum or maybe watch tv for several hours? All those things would be considered normal comfort zones but to them they'd get antsy. We all have different comfort zones that aren't "normal" to others but there's nothing wrong with that! I feel alive and happy when I'm doing the things in my comfort zone, just like they feel alive and happy doing sky diving which is their comfort zone. The sad thing is you wouldn't see anyone say to a sky diver that they need to get out of their comfort zone, people only tell "boring" people to get out of their comfort zone. Even though we all live in our comfort zone, some just have more adventurous/exciting comfort zones than others.

Hypothesis: He probably meant that's what makes people feel "alive" or aware, which I think is what that expression really means. Well, I always feel alive, because my sense impressions are unfiltered and I am constantly aware of them except perhaps when I stim hard or zone out completely.

 

[King_Oni]

Maybe this is just me, so I'd like to hear if you guys think I'm making things up. I always thought 'accent' referred to the different pronunciations of the same word, where 'dialect' refers to different word choices or grammatical structure. For example:

"That car needs to be washed" v "That car needs washed"
"I'm about to leave" v "I'm fixin to get ready to go"
"I think ..." v "I reckon ..."

Is this just me, or does anyone else use those terms differently?

That's actually how I think it is.

However, I also think dialect might be a different language alltogether, mostly defined as being regional, but not significant enough to warrant it as an official language.

My area (the south-eastern part of The Netherlands) is a good example of this. Every city here has it's own dialect and they do kinda resemble each other, but you can pretty much identify people from which area they're from. The higher up you go in the country, the less people will understand said dialects from the south. And thus, regionally, it has less and less to do with dutch as a language and is more a thing of it's own, borrowing words from french and german, which have no place in actual dutch, the official language in the entire country.

However, going up north, there is a significant change in accent. The way, dutch people speak the same language, but pronounce it differently. And I do notice this a lot with my girlfriend who is from Amsterdam, whilst I am about 180 miles down south from her. To her (and people in her area) I have a southern accent (or, as they would say "you sound Limburgs") and people can tell I'm from there. For instance we have a soft G rather than a harsh one. So I'm kinda on top of both a geographical area that has a distinct accent thing going on, as well as having a multitude of dialects.

 

[Ylva]

I hate the phrase "I am doing [horrible thing] for [an adult]'s own sake!"

It's nobody's business doing something to me against my will. And then they play the power game: "I am only doing it for your own sake! You will thank me one day!" Well, I'm not thanking you now, am I. I never should have let you into my life and I will never have you invade it again.

It is somewhat excuseable when it is a parent doing something to a child that the child doesn't want to but will benefit from. I only say this because my brother was born with a condition that would only go away if he did certain painful exercises daily in his early childhood. I believe he is quite happy about it now.

 

[djn]

I don't mind figures of speech, particularly. What really bothers me is when people mess them up. It is very, very hard not to correct them constantly. Ones I hear most are:

"Wreck havoc" instead of "wreak" (if you wreck havoc, does that mean you negated it, and there's no havoc, actually? confused...)
"Step foot" instead of "set" (you don't step foot places, you set your foot down)
and in writing, people simply cannot spell "amok", as in "run amok", they spell it "a muck" or "amuck".

Since my job involves instructing others, I often have to use metaphors or similes quite a bit, and I'm pretty comfortable with language in general. But when people use things improperly it just makes me shudder inside, like my brain itches...

Yes - the one that bothers me most is when people say "I could care less" instead of "couldn't."

 

[buckyboy14]

Yes - the one that bothers me most is when people say "I could care less" instead of "couldn't."

I don't understand how people can even make that mistake. People use a lot of dumb, nonsensical figures of speech, but not to realize the difference between "could" and "couldn't"? It boggles my mind!

 

[Peter A.]

I hate the phrase "I am doing [horrible thing] for [an adult]'s own sake!"

It's nobody's business doing something to me against my will. And then they play the power game: "I am only doing it for your own sake! You will thank me one day!" Well, I'm not thanking you now, am I. I never should have let you into my life and I will never have you invade it again.

It is somewhat excuseable when it is a parent doing something to a child that the child doesn't want to but will benefit from. I only say this because my brother was born with a condition that would only go away if he did certain painful exercises daily in his early childhood. I believe he is quite happy about it now.

This has always been used to justify physical and emotional abuse, and it is never right, so I can't comprehend why you would say, 'It is somewhat excusable' - no, it's not. Parents, more than anyone else, have a responsibility to ensure the children under their care do not come to any harm. Physical violence is harmful, and their use of such, due to their inadequacies as a parent in coming to terms with that which is obviously beyond their ability to handle, is a sign of a weak character, of someone who should never have become a parent in the first place.

Look, when I was young, weak and powerless (and therefore unable to stand up for myself), I would often be subjected to emotional and physical abuse simply because I was perceived to be 'slow', 'unruly', 'in the way', 'rude' to those who thought of themselves as being superior (i.e. grown ups), or whatever other ****** reason some dickhead could dream up to justify what they were doing, and the way they were behaving. When I became older, the abuse (not surprisingly) ceased, even though I myself had not really changed, and was still 'slow', 'unruly' and 'rude' in the opinions of those who had nothing but empty space between their ears. I was different, but did not understand why, or even how, and yet the fact that I was different in some obscure sense was used by these people to justify criminal behaviour. No, we need to stop making excuses for abuses of power.

 

[Ariel]

Great post! Where to start?

"At the end of the day"
"Life's not fair" (Generally uttered by the people who know least about it.)
"How are you?" (Honesty forbidden.)
"If I were you"
"I'll let you go now" (Translation: "I'm hanging up on you")
"Everything in moderation" (Apart from moderation, evidently..)

 

[Rudy Schmidt]

"Keep your eyes peeled." Yeuch. Makes me think of somebody peeling eyeballs with a potato peeler.

 

[KassieMac]

This has always been used to justify physical and emotional abuse, and it is never right, so I can't comprehend why you would say, 'It is somewhat excusable' - no, it's not. Parents, more than anyone else, have a responsibility to ensure the children under their care do not come to any harm. Physical violence is harmful, and their use of such, due to their inadequacies as a parent in coming to terms with that which is obviously beyond their ability to handle, is a sign of a weak character, of someone who should never have become a parent in the first place.

Look, when I was young, weak and powerless (and therefore unable to stand up for myself), I would often be subjected to emotional and physical abuse simply because I was perceived to be 'slow', 'unruly', 'in the way', 'rude' to those who thought of themselves as being superior (i.e. grown ups), or whatever other ****** reason some dickhead could dream up to justify what they were doing, and the way they were behaving. When I became older, the abuse (not surprisingly) ceased, even though I myself had not really changed, and was still 'slow', 'unruly' and 'rude' in the opinions of those who had nothing but empty space between their ears. I was different, but did not understand why, or even how, and yet the fact that I was different in some obscure sense was used by these people to justify criminal behaviour. No, we need to stop making excuses for abuses of power.

All I can say to this is, be glad you're a guy. I still (as an independent adult female) have people using feigned 'concern' for me as an excuse to act against me. Passive-aggressive much?

 

[Ste11aeres]

Yes - the one that bothers me most is when people say "I could care less" instead of "couldn't."

I think that one's actually supposed to be sarcastic.

 

[Ste11aeres]

"You're overthinking it."

This one is used to evade a discussion/evade admitting that the speaker is wrong about something.

 

[KassieMac]

Thought you guys might enjoy this ... "Weird Al" Yankovic's Word Crimes

It made me laugh out loud ... literally!

 

[exactlyloved1]

I hate "back in the day"

I agree. To me "back in the day" seems like just fluff words because it in no way refers to a specific time, and it doesn't usually give the listener any extra information. Haha.

 

[KassieMac]

I agree. To me "back in the day" seems like just fluff words because it in no way refers to a specific time, and it doesn't usually give the listener any extra information. Haha.

I'm just glad it's replaced the condescending & demeaning "When I was your age …" It may not be perfect, but it's an improvement.

 

[clg114]

Earlier in this thread Asistaga & Ylva said they didn't like the phrase "you know" I agree with that one. It seems that most young people ( nobody here of course ) use that term several times in every sentence.

 

[Ylva]

I'm not sure if this is a figure of speech, but the phrase "Men are visual creatures."
Maybe there's truth in it, but the phrase is way over used.

All that phrase means is that they can see and/or can be seen. It's just an empty set of words like "boys will be boys", used to "justify" their sexual harassment.