View Single Post
  #62   Report Post  
Posted to alt.home.repair,uk.d-i-y,alt.computer.workshop
JNugent[_7_] JNugent[_7_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 168
Default OT: What words or phrases annoy you?

On 10/06/2021 10:01 pm, NY wrote:
"micky" wrote in message
...

I also don't like "different than".Â* It should be "different from".



People who use clichés or standard phrases, but get them the wrong way
round so they make no logical sense: "cheap at half the price" (it
should be "cheap at twice the price" if you mean "very cheap") and that
Americanism "I could care less": no, you *don't* mean that, it makes no
sense; you mean "[I care so little that] I could *not* care less".

Then there's the ultimate "should of" ("I should of noticed that you
were wearing a new dress"). Grrrr. "Should have"...Â*Â* And that makes its
way into written English, so it's not just sloppy/hurried speech.


The thing that really makes my strangling-fingers start fidgeting (!) is
American-style business-meeting bull****: "leverage" (always pronounced
the US way - levveridge, even by Brits), "blue-sky thinking", "thinking
out of the box", "OpEx and RatEx", "run that up the flagpole and see who
salutes", "Reaching out [to someone]" etc. I suppose it's an offshoot of
business letter clichés from earlier times, such as "I beg to inform you
that...", "Assuring you of our best intentions at all times, I remain
your loyal servant" (*), and "Please find enclosed/attached..." (what's
wrong with "Here is..."?).


I don't think "Please find enclosed/attached" is an Americanism. Scrooge
and Cratchit would have been familiar with it (had they existed).

"Here is / are" doesn't really work as well as "Please find enclosed".
The idea is to leave no doubt that the item or information being sent is
in a separate document (or might be a cheque / banker's draft, etc).

(*) Someone overdosed on the Uriah Heep obsequiousness tablets! So
cringing that it's prostrate. FFS, just say "Yours sincerely/faithfully"
depending whether you started with "Dear [name]" or "Dear Sir/Madam".
Except that addressing "Dear Sir/Madam" is not sufficiently
gender-inclusive for the Wokesters of today.


:-)