Sunday, November 9, 2008

I Personally Find This Fairly Unique

We all have phrases/words that we hate. If you ask this question at a slow dinner party, people will start naming theirs. (And will probably mention skeevy words like "moist" that will make all of you lose your appetite.) But now Oxford has put together their top ten list of hated phrases.

The top ten are:

  1. At the end of the day
  2. Fairly unique
  3. I personally
  4. At this moment in time
  5. With all due respect
  6. Absolutely
  7. It's a nightmare
  8. Shouldn't of
  9. 24/7
  10. It's not rocket science

I hate "shouldn't of" too. It's "shouldn't have." "Of" has no place in the equation. I can even see where "24/7" and "It's not rocket science" would have gotten kind of annoying, since they're used fairly often. But "absolutely?" It's a word. A single, lonely word. How is that so annoying? And how many people use "at the end of the day" enough to make it annoying? Who are these Oxfordians hanging out with, and why do they think about the end of the day so much?

One phrase/word that I hate is "alright," as a single word. It's "all right." In other words, everything is right. It is all good. Why do we need to take out the space and the extra l? Poor little l, with no more home.

Another useless study for people like me. Thanks Oxford researchers!

1 comments:

kgwhit said...

get rid of the term "back in the day." What day?