Current Phrases You Can't Stand

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

"stand up" - an evacuation centre, a quarantine facility, a consulate etc.

Might be local jargon, our Marketing Manager says it all the time.

BR

I don't think I've ever heard "stand up" used that way. As a noun?

[hobnail]

Speaking of single word peeves, another one of mine is when people use words incorrectly and then it becomes so widespread that the dictionaries start defining the new and formerly incorrect usage as correct. E.g., alternate, which used to be used as "the light alternates between red and green", but now it's used instead of the correct alternative. Or verbing; my favorite to hate here is gift; she gifted me her old kindle. Or not knowing the difference between the noun setup and the verb set up.

I sometimes wish we had some committee like the French do to mandate what's correct.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by hobnail

Speaking of single word peeves, another one of mine is when people use words incorrectly and then it becomes so widespread that the dictionaries start defining the new and formerly incorrect usage as correct.

I agree! "nice" should still mean "stupid, foolish, ignorant" the way it originally did eight centuries ago. Semantic shift is EVIL, and people who insist that language, every language, constantly evolves and changes are just being NICE. And don't get me started on the horrible lazy way the perfectly fine "god be with you" got slurred by slovenly, lazy speakers into the AWFUL modernism "goodbye"

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by issybird

"iconic"

...used about anything at all, now, so that it's meaningless.

(e.a.)

The section in Guy Deutscher's The Unfolding of Language that examined this process was one of my favorites. It explained much about the inevitability of the phenomenon, and its mechanics.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

This one only bugs me when people actually mean "figuratively".

Hi @hobnail!

Exactly. It literally makes my head explode!

[Uncle Robin]

"figurative 'literally' - peeving pedantic prescriptivists for not less than 250 years"

https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/10906...=literally#eid
"c. colloquial. Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’.
Now one of the most common uses, although often considered irregular in standard English since it reverses the original sense of literally (‘not figuratively or metaphorically’).
1769 F. Brooke Hist. Emily Montague IV. ccxvii. 83 He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies."

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by issybird

"iconic"

...used about anything at all, now, so that it's meaningless.

May I quote your iconic post?

[doubleshuffle]

Are we ready to think outside the box in this thread? Can we push the envelope? (Both not really very recent, but as despicable as on the day they were coined...

[Uncle Robin]

It is quite amusing to see the rather elastic definition of "current" for many of these peeves. The OED's first citation for the verb "gift" is from an unspecified date in the 16th century.
"15.. Wife in Morel's Skin C j b The friendes that were together met He [printed Be] gyfted them richely with right good speede."
I am in awe of anyone who's been alive so long they can consider a 500 year old usage a "current" development.

[doubleshuffle]

"Gift" as a verb also makes a lot of sense, because "give" doesn't always mean "give as a gift". In German we have "geben" and "schenken", where the former is equivalent to "give", and the latter to "gift".

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

"Gift" as a verb also makes a lot of sense...In German....

That kind of thinking is "poison"

[doubleshuffle]

Maybe.

But "new" words tend to get used when there is a need for them, a concept they serve to express that isn't expressed precisely enough by another word yet.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Maybe.

But "new" words tend to get used when there is a need for them, a concept they serve to express that isn't expressed precisely enough by another word yet.

Absolutely, I agree 100%.

My "poison" was, of course, a feeble pun - I love punning on words that look the same in different languages but have very different meanings.

[pdurrant]

I couldn't care less about any of the ones posted so far.

The only usage that upsets me is "I could care less" used when the speaker meant "I couldn't care less".

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Absolutely, I agree 100%.

My "poison" was, of course, a feeble pun - I love punning on words that look the same in different languages but have very different meanings.

Your pun was good. I was just too dense to get it.