What English expression do you hate the most?

[All uphill]

I dislike anything in the present historic:

"It's 1789 and France is facing historic change"

No It's not 1789, it's 2024! Call yourself a historian and you don't even know what century you're in!

 

[Red17]

Someone starting a statement with "to be honest"

Pretty sure I have heard that it is a sign that they are about to lie to you

 

[Venod]

 

[Profpointy]

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A good one I heard was "Does the Pope crap in his hat?"

 

[gavroche]

Another one I forgot to mention and seems to be common place now is "prep ". You " prepare " something and I still use it. I refuse to give in to that laziness that ruins a language.

 

[Profpointy]

Another one I forgot to mention and seems to be common place now is "prep ". You " prepare " something and I still use it. I refuse to give in to that laziness that ruins a language.

What about bus, fridge, perk, amp (either meaning) or even div, grad and curl ?

 

[Dogtrousers]

What about bus, fridge, perk, amp (either meaning) or even div, grad and curl ?

Now those I do hate. Or at least, fear.

With good reason. Flashback to hours staring my green Shaum's Vector Analysis book thinking "This is just nonsense. They've just made it all up on a whim"

 

[Time Waster]

Do you not understand what the word "Holiday" means?

It is, literally "Holy Day". It has always been perfectly correct and acceptable to call Christmas, aster etc. "Holidays", and it is nothing to do with not offending people.

Though there is fare to much attention given to not offending people by the naming of things (who would usually not be offended anyhow).

Aah but are you considering that usage changes and the word, as used by almost all people, means a day off not a holy day.

It is this modern usage that it is being used in order to not offend non Christians who might get offended by people celebrating a Christian holy day or the festival day of consumerism (I know Black Friday is taking over this but I think you know what I mean). It is this usage that annoys me in that it is applied to just one religious day not all religious days.

It is true that the idea that people use it to separate that part of the year from the holy day it came out of, by using a word that originally means holy day in the Christian tradition, is kind of ironic IMHO.

I still think the use of holidays for Xmas is annoying.

 

[Profpointy]

Now those I do hate. Or at least, fear.

With good reason. Flashback to hours staring my green Shaum's Vector Analysis book thinking "This is just nonsense. They've just made it all up on a whim"

I struggled at the time, as a lot of stuff was dumped on us all at once without the rationale.
I seem to remember doing vector analysis in half a lecture then straight into Maxwell's equations and fluid flow (which are mathematically fairly similar)
I guess I'd got used to being rather more spoon fed at A level so did rather badly at uni.

Been reading up a bit more and have at least an intuitive feel about it now, though not claiming I could do the actual manipulations

Quite a good book I was reading recently was "div grand and curl and all that", obviously a reference to Seller and Yateman.

Tensors I still can't get !
I was OK with General Relativity conceptually but I couldn't get my head round tensors, which are a vital part of actually "doing" general relativity

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Yay.

 

[matticus]

It’s not a full expression that annoys me, rather an incomplete one-

My step daughter will say “shall we go beach?”

As opposed to

“Shall we go to the beach?”

In her defence it might be a Devon/Plymouth thing as my ex in-laws used to say the same thing.

It’s nails down the blackboard!

It does sound like a 5yo talking.

 

[Time Waster]

I think you're searching for "offence" where there is none. It's an American thing. I first came across it back when I lived in New York and although I never gave it much thought I always assumed it was just to cover all of Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year*, so it covers all bases. Or at least, several bases, there may be some other religious holidays in December that I don't know about.

It always struck me as a handy shorthand.

Now I could be wrong, after all I lived in NYC which is pretty atypical of the US as whole.

*Or New Years as they say. Which probably annoys some people

No offence I just find it annoying americanism. This is the thread for things in the English language that you hate not find offence with. I find no offence with it just hate the use of it as it seems a wrong greeting for Xmas to me.

It has more recently been used to bring in Hanukkah into the equation too which I do have mixed feelings about as the two festival days are separate but that is the more modern usage. The original use was in a tobacco add in Amercia BTW in the 1800s. Or at least the first documentary evidence of its use. Although the modern usage of it to not offend or to bring in other religion's festivals in about that time in with the Christian one is the part of it I do not like. As always you are welcome to your opinion and I didn't expect mine to be a problem. This is all light hearted fun thread afterall!!

 

[Mo1959]

People who call their pets doggos and fur babies. As much as I have loved all my cats and dogs over the years, that’s what they are……cats and dogs!

 

[lazybloke]

Aah but are you considering that usage changes and the word, as used by almost all people, means a day off not a holy day.

It is this modern usage that it is being used in order to not offend non Christians who might get offended by people celebrating a Christian holy day or the festival day of consumerism (I know Black Friday is taking over this but I think you know what I mean). It is this usage that annoys me in that it is applied to just one religious day not all religious days.

It is true that the idea that people use it to separate that part of the year from the holy day it came out of, by using a word that originally means holy day in the Christian tradition, is kind of ironic IMHO.

I still think the use of holidays for Xmas is annoying.

In a landscape of multiple faiths and simultaneously increasing secularity, I don't see any problem with the word "holiday" - it helps that the word has different meanings to different audiences.
As words go, it's often more accurate and useful than "Christmas".

 

[Gwylan]

Holidays is a corruption of 'Holy Days' and as I've mentioned in another thread the Christians appropriated Saxon/Pagan festivals for them, Christmas was Yuletide celebrating the passing of the Winter Solstice and Easter was the festival of Eostre celebrating the Spring Equinox and was a fertility festival (hence the Eggs and Bunnies both symbols of fertility)
Midsummer seems to have been ignored but the Autumn Equinox lives on in Harvest Festivals in Churches

Cultural appropriation, annexation.