To cringe when people say...

[Dalmore30]

Food being described as ‘beautiful’, ‘gorgeous’ or ‘stunning’ makes me wants to vomit.

I have to bite my tongue when people say ‘fry off’ rather than just fry.

And the word ‘secondment’ makes my skin crawl!

Is anyone with me on these?

I cringe when I hear Brits banging on about Americanisms - it's so parochial. And language changes both ways - I hear lots of Britishisms in the US now that were unknown 20 years ago when I last lived there (prime example =wanker- we give 'em the best of British )

Top little Englander comment that makes me cringe every time: 'Americans say 'aluminium' wrong'. Er no, it's a different word in North America, and they pronounce it correctly.

Have you got anything on [insert topic].
Rather than
Do you have a book about [insert topic] add please (the last word is non negotiable).

Also "where's the disabled toilet?" Or just the sign. If the toilet were disabled it would not be possible to use it, for example, the flush would not be working or it would be detached from the plumbing.

It is either toilet for the disabled or accessible toilet.

"Intercourse" to describe a sexual encounter was a widely accepted usage back in the eighties (and probably earlier); short for "sexual intercourse" which was the official phrase. (We always used to giggle when encountering phrases like "social intercourse" )

"Making love" was pretty standard too - that's something I've seen various younguns on here pronounce unacceptable.

@toilenstripes I'm not sure you can claim a people that uses "off of" has decent grammar

@lottiegarbanzo

Oh 'a cheeky...' is so irritating. No-one is amused, or undermined, by your decision to have a beer. Just make a decision, then enjoy your drink, like any other grown-up. 'A cheeky...' is such a man-child phrase.

I agree, this annoys me too.

God everything annoys me. I really am the archetypal grumpy -old-- middle aged woman

@merryhouse

"Intercourse" to describe a sexual encounter was a widely accepted usage back in the eighties (and probably earlier); short for "sexual intercourse" which was the official phrase. (We always used to giggle when encountering phrases like "social intercourse" )

"Making love" was pretty standard too - that's something I've seen various younguns on here pronounce unacceptable.

@toilenstripes I'm not sure you can claim a people that uses "off of" has decent grammar

😆 “Off of” the backs of men....or something like that, is perfectly reasonable English! But yes, we do stumble over the placement of prepositions. 😬

I cringe when I hear Brits banging on about Americanisms
I agree with you. There's a lot of that. It feels like there are some nationalities deemed fine to slag off on mumsnet (I'm including English and Americans in that) and others where it causes uproar. People shouldn't be xenophobic on mumsnet full stop. No exceptions. I'm not including criticism of governments/leaders in that which is fine (unless you live in North Korea I guess)

“If I’m honest” always makes me wonder if they’re not usually honest. 😬

@BritWifeinUSA

Safe. This obsession about being “safe” is driving me around the twist. I’m in a Facebook group where we share recipes, photos of food (shoot me now), restaurant reviews, etc. When I joined I got a message on screen saying “we want everyone in this group to feel safe, so we do not permit...”. It’s a Facebook group where we talk about food, not road trip through a war zone. I can only use “safe” to talk about not being in immediate physical danger but it seems to be used now to refer to not hurting people’s feelings.

This!!!! Hate it. Woke wankery.

@doggytalk121

My MIL always says 'it was Devine' I hate it every single time haha

Particularly as she spelled it wrong!

@ElGuardiandenoche

I’ve noticed on a lot of cooking shows recently that the word hero is being used to describe a part of the food they’ve cooked. IE “we want you to hero the asparagus in this dish.” “I’ve hero’d the chocolate in the mouse.”

Drives me up the wall...FOOD. CANNOT. BE. A. HERO!!!😡🤬 sorry for the rant ☺️

You mean they're using hero as a verb??! Even worse than just trying to describe food as a hero! (Which obviously it isn't as you say). Gross.

In fact using words which are not verbs as verbs in general. 'I'll diarise that for Thursday' - eurrrgh.

@justilou1

My fourteen year old daughter begins nearly every sentence with “So....” and addresses me as “Hey...” Her twin brother sounds like a bawling, grunting calf because he has begun speaking in the abbreviated language of text messages (I think) and his voice is breaking. I am very tempted to asking the orthodontist to accidentally wire their braces shut for the Christmas period.

I went through that phase too as a teenager. My mum used to reply with 'knit' which drummed it out of me eventually. She also successfully drummed the overuse of the word 'like' out of me - probably just by repeating 'like' over and over again in a very annoying way whenever I used it incorrectly.

There are so many words that make me cringe that my son says he’s surprised I’m actually able to use the English language at all.

Calling everyone a warrior is the one winding me up at the moment. Work out 3 mornings a week? - warrior! Have a routine operation? - warrior! Pick yourself up after a bad week? - warrior! Erm no...

That's funny! Young people often say "Like" in a weird adenoidal nasal drawl, sort of a quasi American affectation.

Moist and hun 《shudder》

My sister says"utterly" all the time to anything remotely good or enjoyable...I mean who actually says "utterly" unless they're in a period drama?

Hon is the one that really makes me cringe. Awful!

No but i hate when they say we’ve had a gorgeous day
Doesn’t make sense 😅

when people have pics of food and write "nom,nom" , i can imagine them eating like pigs

My bugbear is the use of the word caramelise
for anything that involves frying until an ingredient gets colour.

The word gift annoys me.
The awful use of the word yourselves ie: "we are now just waiting for yourselves to sign" just makes me absolutely cringe!

Monies
Guesstimate
OMG
Amazeballs
Bestie

And ‘simples’ or ‘just sayin’

@Creamcake123

"..at the end of the day.." when summarising a situation infuriates me, it just makes no sense.

Also, when people write "On route" instead of "en route" ....arhh!!

If anyone says 'at the end of the day' to my brother, he always says 'it gets dark'.

The look of puzzlement on their faces is brilliant.

I get incensed by journalists (yes, you, BBC in particular) trying to use a noun as a verb.....eg ‘to medal’ meaning ‘to win a medal’. To ‘meddle’ is somewhat different. Similarly, you appeal AGAINST a decision, not just appeal it. I know last one isn’t the noun/verb confusion. It drives me nuts, and is becoming more common. My hubby says this is how speech ‘evolves’. I just think it’s lazy.