Phrases you hate

[Lemon1111]

Mine is ‘buttery soft’…If you haven’t come across this phrase, it is mainly used when describing leggings or other clothes, but now I’ve even seen it being used to describe gold jewellery! Also butter isn't that soft…Margariney soft doesn’t have the same ring to it I suppose.. Anyone else?

Kiddo / kiddies

Auburngal · Today 06:45

Not a phrase but those who pronounce broccoli as brock-o-lie. It’s brock-o-leigh

That sounds like an Irish badger...

"on the weekend" should be "at the weekend"

Yes!

@Coughsweet I'm in NE Scotland and gotten is definitely used.

Here, little girls are often described as "wee wifies" . I hate it!

Peri.

I'm back with 2 more!

• smash it. Urgh. Facebook is usually full of this nonsense on back to school day "have a great first day at nursery, you'll smash it!" "Go and smash Year 4!" "This one is going to smash sixth form" etc 🤢 it's so unnecessarily violent!

• I only ever see this on Mumsnet from makeup haters, but referring to wearing makeup as "smearing" absolutely turns my stomach, "there's no need for young women to smear themselves in makeup" "lipstick smeared all over her face" etc. Makes me picture Robert Smith from The Cure!!

I'll definitely have to reassess my vocabulary from now on. 😬😬😬

No it doesn't. It just means all situations, many o which are socially and economically equivalent.

A new one - raw dogged. It’s when you fly without listening to music, watching inflight entertainment or something on your phone/tablet/laptop. I certainly can’t do that as music keeps me motivated

Plus some people who raw dog don’t even drink anything (even water) or get out of their seat. Very stupid as can cause dehydration and increase risk in DVT.

Crisp white shirts
to be fair

The same lad must also have a thesaurus on his desk, as his phone notes never use the word "said". Expressed, averred, stated, declared, asserted, commented.... But never said

God, this is an absolute bugbear of mine and I think it is to do with how "creative writing" is taught in the English GCSE. I get sent so many business press releases now where the writer is indulging their inner Dickens. Also it always says something like "Commenting, Mr Smith articulated "We are delighted to have merged with blah blah" . No! You don't need "commenting!" We can see he is commenting! Try "We are delighted to have merged with blah blah," said Smith.

Does flying with just a book count as raw dogging?

I can't stand 'checked over' as in 'went to hospital to be checked over'. It makes my skin feel crawly.

I’m sorry to have to tell you that’s not the origin of the phrase. 😳😳😳

I was thinking similarly earlier. @Auburngalraw dogging is sex without a condom. It's come to mean doing something without preparation too though.

Not a phrase, but I’m heartily sick of seeing ‘disrespectful’ - it’s so over-used, when it’s so often case of sheer bad manners, or a lack of consideration.

On the contrary, all the advice I’ve ever seen on creative writing (I’m a multi published author) has advised against using all these alternatives to ‘said’.

But it’s all been aimed at adult wannabees - maybe GCSE English has a mind of its own!

A new one I keep seeing on social media is memes about 'taking an everything shower', what is an everything shower? It annoys me and I don't even know why

I was today years old

It's about repetition. Ideally, you want to avoid speech tags as much as possible. You don't really need, 'said', every time. We know they've said it because it's in inverted commas.
But in English GCSE it's about getting children to increase their vocabulary. To think about language and avoid repetition. The fine-tuning (dodging speech tags altogether, whilst still making it clear which character is speaking) will come if anyone gets seriously into writing.
I used to write minutes and, because it's not a novel and I had to name every speaker, I used to switch out 'said' occasionally, just to stop it reading like I didn't know any other words. Different vocabulary to mean the same thing can make dull accounts of lengthy meetings a little less soporific than repeated words/phrases.

No. Not reading anything or puzzle books counts.!

It’s taking a shower when you do ‘everything’, like hair wash, condition, body wash, hair removal, exfoliation, cleanse, tone, moisturise, possibly do a leave in hair mask.

Back when I was in school we used to refer to something similar as our Big Shower, but it didn’t have quite as many steps.

Aha, thank you.

I was in a queue in a coffee shop today with all the people in front of me “Can I get”-ing. I thought of this thread.

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