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Annoying words/phrases/uptalk

Hope

 

As a pedant, I study what people say and how, and get irritated by what appears to be the 'dumbing down' of the English language. I get this wrong myself from time to time, imbibing bad habits in my speech, and I am trying to eliminate these bad habits.

Thankfully, however, I never say 'awesome' or the  perennial ''aah bless'', usually uttered by people with nothing better to say. I am sick of the number of times that some people litter their conversation with ''aah bless': you show them a 'cute' picture - ''aah bless'; you tell them about an 'endearing' incident or person - ''aah bless'', and so it goes on.

Other overused words and phrases include:

'like', as in 'and she was like...' (the wrong use of the word 'like'!)

'Literally'

'Basically'

'Whatever'

'Yeah right'

'At the end of the day'

'To be honest'

'24/7'

'Seriously'

'It was a nightmare'

'Really?'

'Etc, etc, etc'

 

'Uptalk' is when every sentence is posed as a question, when it should an authoritative statement. The high-rising-terminal, as it is also known, is mainly used by the young, and it suggests a lack of certainty and insecurity.

  • Jon said:

    I say words in the wrong order, use totally the wrong words, use 'fillers', create my own words, say things in a different way, get 'hooked' on a particular word because I like saying it. I think I would drive you mad (not literally, although it depends on what you use the word 'mad' for).

    Out of interest, have you any strategies to save everyone from this evil affliction? Wink

    Oh yes, I swear too!

    Hi Jon,

    I do this a lot of the time.  In fact most of the time.  I keep a list in my head of things to say, topics, anecdotes, facts, expressions, idiosyncratic neologisms, reversals in syntax.  So many weird way of talking.

    I tend to find it an advantage, compared to at least the alternative, which would either be silence or total gibberish.  But this has the side effect of making me very tired.

    But when things breakdown and I use the wrong words for thing I run into problems, for example, I use the phrase 'the other day' to refer to any day in the past even yesterday (which is apparently wrong), I also call buses trains and vice versa.

    I guess the only means of coping with this is to talk your time (a long time) in articulating sentences and concentrate on what you are saying.  Although the effect will be tiredness.

  • "to be honest" is one I've caught myself using a couple of times and hate myself for because it's as if I were ashamed of having an honest opinion.  I don't like the word "nice" or "quite nice" because they way people use them it's so non-committal, false, often means that the person has the opposite opinion, in which case why don't they just say they don't like it?

  • I say words in the wrong order, use totally the wrong words, use 'fillers', create my own words, say things in a different way, get 'hooked' on a particular word because I like saying it. I think I would drive you mad (not literally, although it depends on what you use the word 'mad' for).

    Out of interest, have you any strategies to save everyone from this evil affliction? Wink

    Oh yes, I swear too!

  • Language, the meanings, and usages, of words, are not static things.

    If they were we'd all still be using words like 'thee' and 'thou', if not even older words.

    Also, because of this nature of language to evolve, it is not pedantry to 'correct' people when they use words in way you dislike.

    This (correcting someone because they are, technically, wrong) is pedantry.

  •  Mum of 3: Maybe pedantry is a trait of AS that can be shared by the wider family of those affected - the Broader Autism Phenotype, which has been studied. Autism is, after all, mainly genetic.

    Deleuze: I think I do have stock words/phrases that I use in conversation, but I can't recall them  right now. I often produce an annoying laugh - a nervous laugh- when I am feeling socially nervous, but I am trying not to do this.

    I don't use the latest fashionable words/phrases or slang. I listen to too much Radio 4 and spend too much time with older adults, having hardly any aquaintances within my age group.

    The reason ''aah bless' annoys me is because it exudes sentimental emotion for the pure sake of it, and is devoid of meaning. Religious people say 'God bless'  to show their faith, but this does not annoy me if it is done occasionally and sparingly. I am not a Christian but I accept that people who are religious might speak in a religious way. However, atheists and people of no particular faith are now saying 'bless' all the time, and this is hypocrisy, and it  is vacuous to the extreme. One particular person I know is addicted to the word, and is not a Christian. I have actually started counting how often she says it when I am with her. Last time she said it 4 times in 10 minutes - ''aah bless', ''bless it'', ''bless her''!!!. It is like a verbal tic and is extremely monotonous.

     

  • I really like administrative language - it's somewhere between authoritative and ambiguous.  I find it quite humorous in that respect.

    Hmm, I do wonder why people repeat phrases and words like that.  But then again in social situations I find myself running on a very limited number of phrases/topics/conversational cliches that soon dry up.  I remember being at a party when I was a teenager running round continually asking people 'how's it going' - then I fell asleep.

    When you find yourself in a social situation do you have stock phrases you use?

    How to they differ from those used by neuro-typical people?