Most Abused Words

Phrases that make me slightly insane. "And da da da" "well..." but it sounds like "woo" in a sort of Chewbacca way. "So I'm like woo..., why did you do that?" "Okay, that's a little too much information!" - my, aren't you an original little pleb. "Are you ready for this?" - No, fuktard, I was already bored five minutes ago when you started with your platitudes. "Do you want to know the reason why? I'll tell you. Here's the reason. The reason is because..." - blowhard loves the sound of his/her voice

"Make no mistake." I've started hearing this a lot over the last couple of years. I think its function is to add a tone of authoritativeness to whatever the speaker is trying to say. When I was young, the only people I remember using this phrase were pro wrestlers talking tough in their promos.

Almost any and all profanity, with "****" leading the pack.

"Proper"

Originally Posted by Strombollii

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Almost any and all profanity, with "****" leading the pack.

"Proper"

I'm not against profanity in general; there's a time and a place. But some people just don't fuckin' get it

literally

"Amateur"
Nobody seems to know the correct definiton and usage of it.

Originally Posted by Baron

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When people use tact instead of tack, as in "maybe you should try a different tact." It's so misused that I'm afraid the descriptivists will start calling it correct.
Is this the group of grammar snobs that Why belongs too?

I cant stand marsupials who use "amongst" when they should simply be using among.

Originally Posted by sjmin209

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Also, people who confuse "everyday" and "every day"

Erhm... can you give examples of their proper usage?

Originally Posted by MiddleClassDude

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Threak

j/k, but from what I have found is this is a SF-exclusive meme... what are it's origins??

It's had its origins in a misspelling, obvii.

Also: obvii.

Originally Posted by L'Incandescent

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"Make no mistake." I've started hearing this a lot over the last couple of years. I think its function is to add a tone of authoritativeness to whatever the speaker is trying to say. When I was young, the only people I remember using this phrase were pro wrestlers talking tough in their promos.

Yeah, I actually once caught myself saying, "as you may or may not know", and realized that this clause added absolutely nothing to the sentence. Not to mention "as you may not know..." is completely nonsensical.

Originally Posted by Strombollii

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Almost any and all profanity, with "****" leading the pack.

"Proper"

Well I disagree with this heartily, but I think you really need to have an ear for the rhythms of a sentence in order to use them effectively.

I really hate "bullshit" as a way of expressing one's own belief that an idea is bogus, without actually having to go through the trouble of marshalling an actual counter-argument.

"Yeah maaaan, I mean, like, the pro-life movement is just totally, like, bullshit, maaaan."

Yes, and we can all tell how important this issue is to you by the mental exertions you have dedicated to discussing it. Thank you for you contributions to Our National Dialogue.

Also, I despise anyone who presumes to Open A National Dialogue.

Originally Posted by tagutcow

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It's had its origins in a misspelling, obvii.
This much is clear. But it's not like the D is near the K. So I could see how 'pwn' came about, people were mistyping 'own' (which in and of itself is another lame over used word these days). But threak? How did that get misspelled enough to become a meme? =)

Originally Posted by tagutcow

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Erhm... can you give examples of their proper usage?

One is an adjective and the other is an adverb.

Conne gets bored by everyday tasks. (adj)
Conne gets bored by a man every day. (adv)

Originally Posted by tagutcow

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I really hate "bullshit" as a way of expressing one's own belief that an idea is bogus, without actually having to go through the trouble of marshalling an actual counter-argument.

"Yeah maaaan, I mean, like, the pro-life movement is just totally, like, bullshit, maaaan."

This is a problem with vulgarities in general. They convey emotion and other pragmatics much more than semantics.

I think threak started because a thread was a wreck, but I could be wrong. And wasnt pwn from 4chan?

Tenants instead of tenets

Said by a horse's a#% at work when leading in to a presentation which he obviously not yet completed (a habit of his), "These are just tenants of the philosophy..." to which I replied, "Ithin you mean tenets of the philosophy, tenants put garbage in the dumbwater so the super can put it in the trash"

compliment instead of complement

I don't know why but it pisses me off when people say happy new year's instead of happy new year (yes I'm aware that they COULD be referring to new year's day, but they aren't, they are just dumb)

Originally Posted by MiddleClassDude

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This much is clear. But it's not like the D is near the K. So I could see how 'pwn' came about, people were mistyping 'own' (which in and of itself is another lame over used word these days). But threak? How did that get misspelled enough to become a meme? =)

I think it's due to the fact that both are under the middle finger when you type; the D being under the left-hand middle finger and the K under the right-hand middle finger.