Things That Annoy Me, But Shouldn't

“Gift” as a verb. I just hate how it sounds. We have a perfectly good word for that already. It’s “give.” It works fine.

 

Existential angst cake, full of empty calories.

 

YES!!!! I gnash my teeth when I see "gift" used as a verb. When did that become a thing? It seems to be fairly recent. Has this particular perversion also infected British English, or is it entirely an American phenomenon?


[Edit to add] Apparently this is not as perverse or as recent as I thought: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/gift-as-a-verb

 

Jeez, no need for that. Just say no to the damn ice cream.

 

"Enthuse." I am a gentle person, but when someone "enthuses" over something, my eyes narrow and a red pencil immediately leaps to hand.

 

I was going for 1913 as the examples from my dictionary shows, but now I doubt my dictionary...damn!

 

"Actionable"

 

This reminds me of this:

 

Black Books is the best show about an alcoholic, misanthropic bookstore owner probably ever made.

 

"Gift" has been around as a verb for 400 years, according to this:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/gift-as-a-verb

But in a similar vein, the use of the word "deplane". One no longer "disembarks", one "deplanes". One should perhaps also "decar" or "dehorse". Oh wait...

 

When someone walking ahead of me is going in the same direction....

 

A couple days ago I went out on my bike to get some groceries and some kid was riding a bike a little ways in front of me, going a little slower than I was. So i was catching up to him, but when I pulled alongside to pass him he sped up a little, and we were going side-by-side for a ways, with that weird awkward thing, do we talk? Do we stare straight ahead and ignore each other?

I think he was new to riding (and had obviously never driven before) so it might have been his first experience of this conundrum. Hopefully he learned from it.

 

It's Monday! You know what that means:


Person: i want this thing
Me: we dont have this thing
Person: you do, i saw it before
Me: we dont have the thing anymore
Person: when do you open? Ill look for it myself!

 

Looking for jobs recently. The environmental sector can be hell for this sort of thing. I once came across a company so faceless and meaningless in their jargon it put me off them completley. Their website was full of sentences like, "Delivering end-to-end bespoke solutions." Other phrases include "dynamic", "approachable", and "results-driven". Makes my blood boil sometimes.

 

Eating Infront of the telly and commercials come on...

 

after just leaving the First Thing That Comes to your Head thread and seeing this.... the first thing that comes to mind is a Catholic choir singing "Lamb of God, he takes away the sins of the world. have mercy on us"...... but reading the words now (as opposed to hearing it sung), it sounds down right scary

 

I'll continue the tradition of combining two popular threads:

 

When Americans bring up war crimes/wrongdoings of other countries over the years as if the US's foreign policy is this shinning example of morality.

 

Given a choice, I don't do business with companies whose only web presence is a Facebook page, and/or whose telephone number goes directly to voicemail.

 

Singers who sing from the throat, thusly:

 

people who say thusly

 

Crumpled bills
just put them down carefully.... what do you do with them?..

 

Our bills don’t crumple anymore cos we have that horrible plastic stuff. It won’t fold and slides about when you have several notes together.

But what do you mean when you say put them down carefully? Put them down where? And they get crumpled because they’re often carried loose in the pocket.

 

Bills? How quaint. No debit cards?