The "Annoying Phrase" Thread

[Hat and Rehat]

When I am passing someone, I sometimes say "excuse me." It lets them know I'm there so they don't run into me, and it's nicer than saying "get out of my way." In getting someone's attention, I think it's nicer to say "excuse me" than "hey, you."

I don't like the use of "I'm sorry" in place of "what?"

When you know your hearing is deteriorating it begins to feel more natural.

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[Hat and Rehat]

excuse me = pre-bumping 'please move out of my way'

I'm sorry = post accidentally hitting someone regrets


This plus a copious use of "please" and "thank you" (admittedly, I am fairly well trained from living in England to have every transaction include 5 pleases and 4 thank yous) makes the polite world go round.

Pre and post is an excellent insight.
Please excuse me as I push myself past you in the gentlest way I can manage.
I beg your pardon after I recklessly, but not intentionally, bounce you off a wall, off a curb or into a trash bin.

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[tonyb]

Eventually those close suburban houses will get so close that they join together, and you'll have Flatbush, c. 1920.

Then thirty years later, everyone will find a big empty potato field, build a bunch of beaverboard houses, and the cycle will begin anew.

Pretty much. People moan, sometimes for good reason, about one house looking just like the one next to it and the one next to it and the one next to it.

There’s certainly nothing new in it. Real efficiencies are had that way, in construction of the housing itself and in all the other ways in which the built environment serves humans living in close proximity.

Remember the song “Little Boxes”? Pete Seeger’s cover c. 1963 made it kinda famous. It tells of people living in “little boxes on the hillside” which are “all made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.”

It goes on to trash the occupants of those little boxes for putting themselves and their offspring in other little boxes, occupational ones, primarily. (It would have the listener thinking the singer disapproves of going into such professions as medicine and the law.) It’s something of a pocket polemic against suburban conformity, which I didn’t find so much to disagree with back before I learned how little I know. Now I find it downright sanctimonious.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Notting Hill, in my younger days, was the pits, run down, semi derelict, urban decay. Much of the cleared bomb damage from WW2 remained as a dumping ground for scrap cars and domestic appliances. Slowly but surely it started to get tidied up, it's proximity to Central London made it more desirable, then Richard Curtis wrote a screenplay for a movie titled: "Notting Hill," and the must live there suburb rose like the Phoenix. There's nothing like the power of a popular film.

The Notting Hill that I still can't get my head around is Hackney. Who would ever have conceived that such a district could ever be gentrified?

Harkening back to a time when London had a real housing crisis, the doss house, where you could get a "coffin-bed" for four pence a night, and if you couldn't afford that, for a penny, you got a seat on a bench and a rope.

https://twitter.com/the_east_end/status/948811903823904769

 

[GHT]

Harkening back to a time when London had a real housing crisis, the doss house, where you could get a "coffin-bed" for four pence a night, and if you couldn't afford that, for a penny, you got a seat on a bench and a rope.

https://twitter.com/the_east_end/status/948811903823904769

Some web page that, London still has pockets of poverty, as does most big cities, but it has also blossomed into a much healthier and wealthier place, lifting millions out of poverty as it has done so.

Did you read any of the comments? Following the photo of the men hanging over the rope one wag wrote:
"Shhh. Some budget airline will try to adopt same in place of seats."

 

[Edward]

Notting Hill, in my younger days, was the pits, run down, semi derelict, urban decay. Much of the cleared bomb damage from WW2 remained as a dumping ground for scrap cars and domestic appliances. Slowly but surely it started to get tidied up, it's proximity to Central London made it more desirable, then Richard Curtis wrote a screenplay for a movie titled: "Notting Hill," and the must live there suburb rose like the Phoenix. There's nothing like the power of a popular film.

It was already well on the up before the film; I think the film just brought it to the attention of folks outside London. What made me laugh was when people criticised the film for only featuring wealthy, white people living on Portobello Road and just off it.... despite the fact that that's exactly representative of what the area had become since the early mid nineties. Nowadays, the NH Carnival is 99% outsiders, while the very few residents who don't flee town that weekend spending three days plagued by randoms ringing their doorbell wanting to use the toilet.

The Notting Hill that I still can't get my head around is Hackney. Who would ever have conceived that such a district could ever be gentrified?

Even when I moved to Whitechapel in 2001, Hackney was still the 'murder mile'. Has its dodgy places still, but it's gone from somewhere I wouldn't want to live to somewhere I could never dream of affording in just a few short years.

Harkening back to a time when London had a real housing crisis, the doss house, where you could get a "coffin-bed" for four pence a night, and if you couldn't afford that, for a penny, you got a seat on a bench and a rope.

https://twitter.com/the_east_end/status/948811903823904769

If you ever get a chance to see it in the US, check out the BBC show The Victorian Slum. One of those 'modern folks live now as then' things, but done very well and pulls no punches about the social realities for those at the bottom. I find these things interesting- for the last eighteen years I've been living in a flat within spitting distance of all the Ripper victim sites. It all went on round here. Our block was built on the exact spot where the first big bomb of the Blitz landed.

 

[GHT]

It was already well on the up before the film; I think the film just brought it to the attention of folks outside London. What made me laugh was when people criticised the film for only featuring wealthy, white people living on Portobello Road and just off it.... despite the fact that that's exactly representative of what the area had become since the early mid nineties.

You might find this amusing Edward. A photo of Portobello Market circa 1948/9. In the foreground you can see me with my parents at the said market, proof that I once had hair.

 

[tonyb]

“We’ll see what happens.”

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Last Fall I went to work for a very large company, one whose name anyone would know. Some of the most senior execs (well, probably sent by their PAs at their direction) are fond of sending mass emails, "From the desk of ... "(senior exec's name here). Gee, his desk sent me an email! I must be special! I'll have my desk get back to your desk. Right now I can't think of anything more pompous.

And while I'm on a rant, how 'bout "utilize"? Can anyone explain to me what subtle shade of meaning that has that plain old "use" doesn't convey? (Non-native speakers of English may excuse themselves from this one.)

"I utilized a broom to get the piece of candy that rolled behind the refrigerator."
"I used a broom to get the piece of candy that rolled behind the refrigerator."

There! depending on how you count them, I just saved three syllables and lost nothing in meaning.

 

[GHT]

Kilo November, I'm not sure if it's just movie speak, military speak or whether multi-syllabic words are better over radio communication, but I've never understood why affirmative and negative are used in place of yes and no.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Utilize" was one of the obnoxious bits of cop-speak I remember from my reporter days. "We believe the individual utilized a blunt intstrument to obtain access to the vehicle," instead of "We think this guy broke into the car with a crowbar."

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Kilo November, I'm not sure if it's just movie speak, military speak or whether multi-syllabic words are better over radio communication, but I've never understood why affirmative and negative are used in place of yes and no.

Yes, I can see (and excuse) the multi-syllabic alternatives when communicating over a medium where signal drop-outs are common. Still, if the signal drops out at the first syllable, "affirmative" and "negative" would be indistinguishable, with possibly disasterous consequences.

 

[Harp]

Kilo November, I'm not sure if it's just movie speak, military speak or whether multi-syllabic words are better over radio communication, but I've never understood why affirmative and negative are used in place of yes and no.

"Daffodil Carousel Two-Four, this is Flat-iron Longhorn One-Seven.
No, goddammit negative, fucking negative, no. Enemy holds LZ, SAY AGAIN, CHARLIE OWNS LZ.
How read LIMA CHARLIE? OVER."

 

[Hat and Rehat]

Voicemail:
"You have reached John DontknowwhaImtalkingabout"

The word is "missed"!

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[tonyb]

Last Fall I went to work for a very large company, one whose name anyone would know. Some of the most senior execs (well, probably sent by their PAs at their direction) are fond of sending mass emails, "From the desk of ... "(senior exec's name here). Gee, his desk sent me an email! I must be special! I'll have my desk get back to your desk. Right now I can't think of anything more pompous.

And while I'm on a rant, how 'bout "utilize"? Can anyone explain to me what subtle shade of meaning that has that plain old "use" doesn't convey? (Non-native speakers of English may excuse themselves from this one.)

"I utilized a broom to get the piece of candy that rolled behind the refrigerator."
"I used a broom to get the piece of candy that rolled behind the refrigerator."

There! depending on how you count them, I just saved three syllables and lost nothing in meaning.

It’s as though the speaker believes more syllables lend an air of learnedness or sophistication or something. That’s the impression I’m left with, anyway.

Among the better pieces of advice to beginning writers is contained in “The Elements of Style,” which was assigned reading for millions upon millions of us who attended 100-level English composition courses over the span of at least a couple post-War generations.

“Omit needless words,” goes the advice. (And then, to make a little joke, it is written three times.) I’d expand on it by suggesting the writer or speaker omit needless syllables. I got nothing against five-dollar words, provided they are the best words for the purpose at hand. Pedantic, flowery, showoff-y speech generally leaves the audience with an impression quite different from what the speaker intended.

EDIT: Have your desk call my desk, and we’ll do lunch.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

"Utilize" was one of the obnoxious bits of cop-speak I remember from my reporter days. "We believe the individual utilized a blunt intstrument to obtain access to the vehicle," instead of "We think this guy broke into the car with a crowbar."

I feel for you of the police desk was your beat. There are probably scanner apps these days that could CYA, but being married to the older systems was extreme boredom coupled with extreme responsibility.

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[LizzieMaine]

I kept a Bearcat scanner in my bedroom, and it ran all night. That isn't why I'm divorced, but I'm sure it didn't help.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, I just realized how much it annoys me when Americans say they "queued up" for an event rather than "lined up." One, unless you actually are British, it's pretentious as poop, and two, it's a homonym for "cued up," a phrase which to anyone with a background in broadcasting or audio production has an entirely different meaning.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
It’s a losing battle, but, like the grocery retailers gradually (but relentlessly) pushing us into self checkout, the opposition is still the side to be on.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Meanwhile, I just realized how much it annoys me when Americans say they "queued up" for an event rather than "lined up." One, unless you actually are British, it's pretentious as poop, and two, it's a homonym for "cued up," a phrase which to anyone with a background in broadcasting or audio production has an entirely different meaning.

Whenever I hear it I think of the anecdote my wife told me. She was an army brat, and dad was called to London on some business and the family came along. Her and siblings were out and about and encountered an ice cream vendor, who hollered the admonition to the kiddies, "Queue up! Queue up!!" She was befuddled by the term but figured out the meaning from context.