What is your least favorite word?

Steamwalker · Post by **Steamwalker** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:06 am

What is your least favorite word?

Okay, this is a question asked of actors on Inside the Actors Studio by James Lipton and I ask it here.

I'll start first with something I think others have said before: Whatever. When used as a single-word sentence, it can set me off more than any other word that I can think of. I mean this when used in the context of someone saying something and the response given is "whatever". It's just so dismissive and disrespectful. I would rather have someone change the subject or simply say that they don't want to talk about it which I can at least respect. It's such a frustrating word.

What's your least favorite word? It doesn't have to be a single word but what is something that people commonly say (or perhaps write) that you really dislike above all others?

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:19 am

I can certainly relate to "whatever." My personal peeve, however, is "like." As in "she was, like" that and he was, like, this."

Redwolf

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:41 am

Treasure.

Close second: Nugget.

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:42 am

For fun, my favorite word: Salt.

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 2:49 am

At the moment: "basically". It seems to be the first word out of a student's mouth at least ten times a day in my office.

seisflutes · Post by **seisflutes** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 2:53 am

It's not something people commonly say or write, really. It's a name. But here it is:

Beulah.

*shudder*
I hate it hate it hate it!!!

If a person has one word of phrase that he or she uses to excess (one professor of mine says "so we get an actual..." all the time, and my landlord says "obviously" no matter if anything is obvious of not) , that does bug me, but there isn't one overused word or phrase I can't stand.

missy · Post by **missy** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 5:40 am

Whatever the current "business phrase" is.

Recently this is "work process". What is your "work process". How can we set up the system so that if follows your "work process". I can't do that because it is outside the accepted "work process".

"Key Element" runs a close second.

I also agree with Redwolf on "like". "And", "ah", and any other often repeated filler word gets me, too.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 5:57 am

I hate when people say "That's so gay" or "That's gay" as though "gay" is an insult equivalent to "stupid."

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 5:58 am

Yeah, like, whatever, eh?

djm

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 7:08 am

djm wrote:Yeah, like, whatever, eh?

djm

Exactly

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 7:10 am

Cranberry wrote:I hate when people say "That's so gay" or "That's gay" as though "gay" is an insult equivalent to "stupid."

I agree. I spent a couple years of carpool trying to correct one kid's habit of using that very phrase that way. I don't think it worked. The kid was kind of a psycho.

As for "whatever..." Oh yes, it can be overused, and dismissively at that. I confess to occasionally employing it with a more self-deprecatory slant.

Fifteen years ago I disliked the word "myriad," because it had suddenly popped up in the editor's letter of every magazine I picked up. It's trendiness has subsided. "Paradigm" went through a phase like that too.

A veterinarian I used to work with used "basically" that way...as an annoying filler.

I'm going to try to bring the oath "bedad" back into common usage.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 7:24 am

'Going forward' as in 'the prospects for the housing industry look pretty bleak going forwards.'

Oh really? And how do they look going backwards?

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 7:36 am

there is this homemade word i've heard a few folks around here use:

flustered + frustrated = flustrated

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:13 am

In a recent edition of "Consumer Reports On Health" a question was asked by a reader: "How do I know whether I need to take a multivitamin?" Consumer Reports' answer started with the sentence, "In general, a multivitamin is necessary only if you don't get all the nutrients you need from diet alone."

Is that so, you say? This kind of reasoning flustrates me.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:27 am

mutepointe wrote:there is this homemade word i've heard a few folks around here use:

flustered + frustrated = flustrated

Aren't all words homemade?