Am doing some research for a lesson on debating I am preparing for my students and came across this article online:
While the reasons for some of the expressions being irritating are self-explanatory or indeed clarified in the article, there are others which I wasn't so sure about, other than that they might be overused, especially nos 6 and 7. Any opinions?
Are there any other words or expressions which you, personally (to overuse that word), find irritating and trite?
"absolutely" is overused for emphatic agreement; I suppose people think that "it's a nightmare" is likewise overused, although it never struck me that way.
Life is too short to get very worked up about any of these things. Although a friend just reminded me of "One of the only (xx)" in place of "one of the few" which I admit does grate on me.
Yes, VinnyD, I know what you mean. It's like the use of the 'greater half':
The teacher at junior school asks her class what half of 6 is? Silence. Ok, she says, imagine a cake, divided in six slices, if I take half of it away, how many slices are there left? Silence. Oh, she goes on, why do I bother, the greater half of you won't get it anyway!
"Fairly unique" isn't nearly as bad as "most unique."
I can see contexts where "I, personally" is appropriate, even if a bit awkward. That is where you are distinguishing yourself from something institutional. Some company bigwig will pontificate that "Acme Corp. has appointed Wile E. Coyote as the new director of ornithology. I personally think that Mr. Coyote will be a terrific addition to our company."
I've seen it more with government agencies ,where staff will mention some agency policy and then add that they personally agree with the policy.
"That's an excellent question"
Duh! Of course it's an excellent question. The interviewer and a team of producers/writers are paid very well to think of excellent questions.
"Awesome"
This word should be banned except when something truly inspires awe.
"Oh my God"
Easily avoided by not watching American television.
"Me and my girlfriend"
Can't the LP computer geeks come up with a program that searches for this phrase and inserts "My girlfriend and I"?
"You know what?"
If I know what, are you still going to tell me?
"Cautiously optimistic"
"Are there any other words or expressions which you, personally (to overuse that word), find irritating and trite?"
'sarcastic' and 'ironic' when they're used in wrong meaning, as not quite serious, or humorous
'definitely' especially when spelled 'definatly'
'pathetic'
Yes, but #5 'that's an excellent question " is a useful gap filler to give the speaker time to think of an (excellent or not) answer.
what about "that's a bit of a grey area'" ? which I remember a teacher trainer using when we would ask him to clarify some point which he presumably didn't know how to explain.
