Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases

Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases

By John Scott Lewinski November 07, 2008
Not all University of Oxford researchers are uptight and humorless, "irregardless" of what you might think. In fact, a bunch of them compiled a list of the Top 10 Most Irritating Expressions in the English language -- just because we needed one.

Though maybe "you could care less," the scholars in question keep track of linguistic mangling and overused buzzwords in a database called the Oxford University Corpus. The voluminous record keeps track of books, magazines, broadcast, online media and other sources, watching for new overused, tiresome phrases and retiring those that fade from use (or misuse).

The great hierarchy of verbal fatigue includes:
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

A Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare is a new book by Jeremy Butterfield that "takes a thorough look at the English language and exposes its peculiarities and penchants, its development and difficulties, revealing exactly how it operates."

I'm a notorious pain-in-the-neck when it comes to poor word choice and business-speak. The words above (and so many more) are crutches for weak vocabularies.

My most hated fake/real word is incentivize. Eg. "I will incentivize the staff with a talk titled RIP Good Times."

I also get annoyed when people start statements with "hopefully", as in "Hopefully, someone will read this post and leave a comment that illustrates my genius."

For the record I take no responsibility for my own actions or statements.