Ever receive an email or text — often work-related -- that bills itself as a “friendly reminder”? I’m curious why the sender distinguishes the reminder as “friendly.” After all one seldom, if ever, receives “hostile” reminders.
If you can damn someone with with faint praise can you also praise someone with faint damnation?
You often hear about what people said on their death bed. My question is this: why would anyone get in their death bed? I wouldn’t even have one. If I were to have an extra bed it would be a life bad.
If your a tactile learner in anatomy class does that mean you have to…..
I keep reading and hearing people talk about past experience. Is there any other kind? You can’t have future experience nor even present experience. It as dumb as pre-planning.
I wasn’t too crazy about partner being turned into a verb, such as “our company is going to partner with them…” Now people “partner up.” What the hell is the word “up” doing there?
I read that something was a senseless tragedy, yet I’ve never read about a sensible tragedy. Are there any sensible tragedies? You hear about senseless violence too. But never about sensible violence.
Ever notice how in movies and TV shows a, for example, Mexican character, will say to English speakers. “Si Señor, we will take care of the problem.” Or a Frenchman will say, “Oui monsieur it is a beautiful city.” Having spent much of the past ten years teaching English to people from other countries, I can tell you that primarily Spanish Language speakers do not throw in a si instead of yes or a señor instead of sir. Nor do primarily French speakers say oui instead of yes or Monsieur instead of sir when speaking English. I suppose TV and film writers have characters from other countries throw in a word in their native language for the benefit of the audience, to remind us that this person is not an American. I find it annoying.
I recently saw — and not for the first time — something being advertised as an added bonus. A bonus is already something that is added. Yet another redundancy.
In days of yore you could tell an annoying or unwanted person to "beat it" or "scram" or "get lost" or "take a hike." None of these terms are used anymore. That’s a lot of phrases for the same action that have disappeared.
Also, no one tells anyone to “go to hell” anymore. I guess the replacement has been “fuck off.” Can’t we have both?
The nice thing about texting becoming the dominant form of communication is that you never hear the following anymore: “we’ve been playing phone tag for the last week.” I don’t know why the phrase “phone tag” bothered me so much — but it did.
Ever been given “a heads up” about something? Do you like the term “heads
up”? I can’t say that I do but I’m not going to make a big deal out of it.
Someone ever ask to "have a word with you?" Invariably they have several words, not just the one. Maybe from now on say: "can I have some words with you?"
Here's something you only ever hear in movies: "I'm afraid I'll have to insist." Never heard it in "real life."
In the Sixties and Seventies I recall people in the counter culture asking "when it the meeting happening?" I'm glad that the addendum "happening" has faded. It was superfluous. As is so much of what we say.
The same sort of people refused to admit that they forgot something. It was always "I spaced out on that." Or I "totally spaced out on that." Didn't make you sound quite as dumb as if you'd simply forgotten. Then again saying "spaced out" is never a good look.
I'm sure you've heard it said of someone that "he is good people." Nope. He's a good person.
I never knew what to make of people who are described as a "class act."
As hip people used to say: I'm out.
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