for my heart to sink every time I read the following phrases:

[EvilEyeButterPie]

"I'm not racist but..." (bound to be followed by outrageous racism)

"Political correctness gone mad!" (will be followed by either something totally made up or exaggerated, or totally reasonable, eg selling Eid cards in shops)

Any mention of human rights in any kind of rightwing outlet. As if rights for humans is some kind of controversy.

"The university of life" this is only ever used by people too thick to go to university.

Any more for any more? :o

"No offence, but..."

"When women started going out to work..." usually followed by something about children roaming the streets with rocket launchers, obesity, giant maggots taking over the earth or other apocalyptic scenarios.

Women have always worked outside the home. A few rich ones didn't used to think it was acceptable to do so, but then a few rich ones probably still don't.

Ditto the 'real women' thing and I'm not skinny but still annoys me, especially when referring to someone who is grossly obese. I don't it's done to belittle skinnies thugh, more to make fat women feel less bad.

And, not unrelated, anything that implies that [oppressed group] actually have the power to dictate or wield power over everyone. So for instance, "the feminist thought-police" - can I ring them up? Dial 666 maybe? Or "the PC brigade/ ethnic minorities would never let us say that".

OP, I was with you until: "The university of life" this is only ever used by people too thick to go to university.

No, it isn't It's actually used quite a lot by people who are intelligent enough to go but due to whatever personal cirumstances are unable to or have chosen not to.

It doesn't belittle acheievement at all. No, working in an office isn't the same academically, but academia is not the be all and end all of everything, and neither is university all about academia.

I'd rather employ someone who had put in those decades of graft into their office skills than the graduate who thinks they know all this after only having done 3 years.

I'm a strong, independent woman

Oh yes and the bloody Nazi comparisons. Totally agree. (to really annoy me, try mentioning "feminazis"). Get back to me when breastfeeding support workers, feminists, grammar pedants etc start instigating death marches, or murdering millions of men, women and children, won't you?

And Health and Safety - yes it can be a real pain. But unless you hanker for the days of being eligible to scamper about in cotton factories with unprotected equipment making you likely to be squashed/stretched/crushed etc, do give it a rest.

I do dislike 'university of life' though. Even though I will be more than happy if my DC decide not to go.

Don't think I have ever The University of Life said to me - or if I have I found it so inoffensive so as not to remember.

One I hate is ' I could have got a degree if I wanted'. It is usually said by childhood friends of DH who pretty much all did badly at school -and implies DH and I wasted our time at uni,degrees are not hard to come by and ignores all the hard work and difficulties we both encountered and had to over come.

I usually ignore but always want to say prove it then.

Elephants - we do have freedom of speech in this country. It is a long established facet of the common law (which is judge made law rather than statute but is law nevertheless). Also, as your link actually says, we now have the Human Rights Act (a piece of UK legislation) which gives us the explicit right of freedom of speech as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. We should be proud that freedom of speech is such an intrinsic part of our culture.

"In my day..."

Why can't people just say "I didn't go to university, I chose to start work/concentrate on my home life/whatever" then if they don't resent students and graduates? IME, it is used by people who don't see the point in learning for it's own sake, and only see it in the context of money/work.

I used to hear it a lot more when I was at uni myself (I dropped out, and yes my life experiences since then have turned out to be more valuable to me, but they are not the same in any way) as a way of taxi drivers, managers at work etc trying to assert their supeirioity and demean what I was doing.

"Ooh, I don't need all those books telling me what to think, I went to the University of Life, me." and 9 times out of 10, that means they don't bother to read up on history, politics, art and so on, because they don't think it relevant to them. Not only that, but they look down on people who do. Imagine a world where everyone was like that. Or worse, imagine a world where just everyone working class was like that - if they didn't happen to go to uni, they woyld then decide that "real life" was better than reading or studying.

I read and study every day, I see it as my responsibility as a member of society and of the working class and as a parent - if everyone like me gave up and just claimed to have been educated in "life" then we would be in a sorry mess.

I know some people might use the phrase to mean something else, but every single time I have heard it IRL it is from people belittling learning and education, because they don't happen to like it for themselves.

I also hate 'University of Life' and do believe it's used to belittle the achievements of those that went to uni. I've only had it said to me by those who I believe were jealous that I went. Just because you went to uni doesn't mean you don't have a real life as well. I have both.

well to answer both those points - you might be right regarding the people you know - but my mother said it because of the academic snobbery of the people asking her the question. She certainly didn't consider Uni a waste of time and was adamant that I should go, and very upset that neither of my siblings did.

But she also got rather pissed off with people looking down on her because they had been to university and she hadn't.

Cuts both ways.

Yep - it just feeds into this idea that students are somehow in ivory towers, disconnected from the world.

In fact, if you have a degree, I dare you, next time somebody says they went to the university of life, say so did you, you studied both degrees at the same time :)

In fact, why the past tense? If they WENT to the university of life, where are they now? If we accept that living life is equivlent to university study, then why have they stopped? have they learned all that life has to offer? Or are they now studying for a doctorate in life? :D

heh, forevervacuuming - your comment about people who went to university (that you would rather employ someone who had actual experience and put in 'decades of graft") EXACTLY demonstrates the context in which the "University of Life" comments are made - to belittle achievements.

mumwithdragontattoo - I think she was meaning that it is called "Freedom of Expression" under the ECHR and HUman RIghts Act (not "Freedom of Speech", which is a US term)

And can you study at the university of life part time? I'm quite busy, but could probably fit in two hours a night of living :o

I studied literature and social policy myself at university - were they completely detached from the human condition then? I obviously should have been living instead - all that doing two jobs and looking after a child whilst studying full time was clearly nothing to do with "real life".

"All my friends tell me I'm mad" = I don't actually have any friends so I just get drunk and try and snog total strangers.

"You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!" = We're basically an office of accountants in our 50s who think that getting Jammy Dodgers instead of Rich Tea is pretty out there.

"I'm a people person" = I talk alot of crap but don't expect me to actually get anything done because I'm crap at everything.

the one that gets me is 'credit crunch'
A nonsense made up to 'soften the impact' The term is recession.

The Health and Safety Brigade. I imagine people wearing berets and carrying hivis clipboards.

"the one that gets me is 'credit crunch'" (FWIW, the credit crunch (sudden & widespread inability of financial insitutions and companies to borrow money) was different to a recession which is defined as two or more consecutive quarters of economic decline)

I hate "being myself," which is just a way of legitimising bad manners and offending people. The flip side seems to be that anyone being polite becomes two-faced.

MrsSOAK - No, the Credit Crunch and the recession are different things. The Credit Crunch was when banks stopped lending money, particularly to each other. This meant that companies couldn't get money to grow, resulting in a recession.