Phrases you can't stand...

Just LOL if you find yourself head to one side, mouth agape like some drunk Labrador trying to understand why the stick doesn't come back, when normal people use normal English words to communicate normal things to you but it breaks your brain to such an extent that you "can't stand" that "phrase" and post about it on an interwebs computer forum.

Noobs.
 
Karen
It bugs me how it’s apparently okay to call people Karen. What about people that are actually called Karen? Surely they must have an opinion on their name being used as a stereotype? How about we call other groups of people by a name, would that be okay too?
 
Jean-F said:
Not a film, but the documentary “Vietnam; The Lost Films.”
Almost at the end, they showed the POWs landing back at various airports around the U.S.
In Augusta GA, in March 1973, Colonel Ben Purcell was reunited with his wife and kids after nearly 6 years as a POW.
Home movies had already been shown of the couple and their kids, prior to Colonel Purcell being deployed to S.E. Asia, and of his wife Anne trying to keep the kids happy at Christmas times, so you kind of felt like you knew the family.
To see Anne’s face when her husband appeared at the top of the plane’s steps, then running to him and hugging him, you’d have had to be made of stone not to get misty eyed.
It reminded me of the time that my elder son returned from a tour of Northern Ireland, to his regiment in Bielefeld, Germany.
He called me to say that he was back, and although his time in Ulster was nothing like being a POW, after 20 to 30 seconds on the phone, I had to stop talking, as I was weeping like a baby.
I remember saying to him, “Want me to phone your mother?”, he said, “I called her first dad, sorry.”
As if I cared that he called my ex first, I just thanked God that he was back in one piece.
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Wrong thread, gulp.
 
Only one that bothers me, like a few others in here it seems, is "I could care less".
I just don't really understand why it's used so much. Is it ignorance of what the actual phrase should be?
 
I work in IT. I absolutely loath "shop", as in "we're a Microsoft shop" :mad: NO...no we're not a shop. Just shut up.
 
D4N said:
Karen
It bugs me how it’s apparently okay to call people Karen. What about people that are actually called Karen? Surely they must have an opinion on their name being used as a stereotype? How about we call other groups of people by a name, would that be okay too?
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I wonder what would happen if we started calling all angry black women by the same name? Or guys? 'Ok, calm down Leeroy' I don't think that would go down too well!
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
Only one that bothers me, like a few others in here it seems, is "I could care less".
I just don't really understand why it's used so much. Is it ignorance of what the actual phrase should be?
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Ignorance of what the actual phrase should be?
Wow, as someone who, depending on whom I’m talking to, often uses the “wrong” version, (according to you), I guess that I should feel suitably chastened, but wait, I could care less that YOU think that I’m ignorant.
Everyone to whom I speak understands what I mean, no matter which way I say it, I suppose that they’re ignorant too?
 
Jean-F said:
Ignorance of what the actual phrase should be?
Wow, as someone who, depending on whom I’m talking to, often uses the “wrong” version, (according to you), I guess that I should feel suitably chastened, but wait, I could care less that YOU think that I’m ignorant.
Everyone to whom I speak understands what I mean, no matter which way I say it, I suppose that they’re ignorant too?
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You still like that comma key don't you! :p

I think I overuse commas too, partly down to typing and trying to keep the same rythmic inflections as talking.
 
D4N said:
Karen
It bugs me how it’s apparently okay to call people Karen. What about people that are actually called Karen? Surely they must have an opinion on their name being used as a stereotype? How about we call other groups of people by a name, would that be okay too?
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I know someone called Karen. And she's exactly the kind of person who would act like a Karen. It couldn't be more fitting.
 
Freakbro said:
You still like that comma key don't you! :p

I think I overuse commas too, partly down to typing and trying to keep the same rythmic inflections as talking.
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I think that you’re on to something with the rhythmic inflections bit, although I’ll put my hands up to at least one possibly superfluous comma in the post that you commented on :(
Now that we’ve established something that we both may be guilty of, perhaps we should both be vigilant re commas :)
 
Jean-F said:
Ignorance of what the actual phrase should be?
Wow, as someone who, depending on whom I’m talking to, often uses the “wrong” version, (according to you), I guess that I should feel suitably chastened, but wait, I could care less that YOU think that I’m ignorant.
Everyone to whom I speak understands what I mean, no matter which way I say it, I suppose that they’re ignorant too?
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No. They know enough to understand that some people sometimes use words incorrectly and to work out what those people probably meant even if those people are saying the opposite of what they mean.

Saying "I could care less" when you mean "I couldn't care less" is objectively wrong. It's not, as you wrongly claim, subjectively wrong. It's as wrong as, for example, saying "It's raining heavily" when you mean "It isn't raining" or "<insert football team here> won 2-0" when you mean "<insert football team here> lost" or "water is denser than lead" when you mean "lead is denser than water". It's objectively wrong. The fact that many people can deduce what you probably meant despite what you said doesn't make what you said less wrong.

You're not ignorant. You're deliberately wrong for some reason.
 
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