What English expression do you hate the most?

[matticus]

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!

Yes. It makes educated historians sound like footballers in a post-match interview.
"I've gone down the wing, and I'm looking for someone in the box, and then ... "

 

[Dogtrousers]

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!!

I just see it as the US version of "Best Wishes" in a card. Usefully vague. There are a couple of public holidays at the end of December that people are free to celebrate however they want, and here's a greeting to match.

Completely off topic: Holidays in the US are a bit different and I don't fully understand them. I remember there'd be days when I'd turn up for work and find the office was a bit sparse and it would be because today was a Jewish holiday, or today was a Catholic holiday and so on. Being in NYC very significant proportions of the workforce were practicing Jews and practicing Catholics. I don't know if they were all using up a day of their personal vacation allowance or whether there was some kind of contractual allowance for religious holidays. There's a strange attitude to other public holidays too. It seems that there are some federal holidays that companies and organisations pick and choose whether to observe. So my US colleagues will be complaining that they are working and the kids have the day off school - or vice versa. In short - America is not the UK, they do things differently.

 

[multitool]

Don't know if this has already been said, but for me it's the smug "If you know, you know".

 

[Seevio]

And another is "reaching a crescendo". As even a lapsed musician like me knows, a crescendo is a gradual getting louder, so "reaching a crescendo" would mean you've got to the bit where it is about to start to get louder. It does not mean "the loud bit" or "the exciting bit". The actual crescendo may only go from pp to p (pianissimo to piano - very quiet to quiet)

A crescendo is also used to refer the loudest part of an increasingly loud sound but feel free to consider me wrong as it's not fair to spoil a good rant.

 

[Profpointy]

A crescendo is also used to refer the loudest part of an increasingly loud sound but feel free to consider me wrong as it's not fair to spoil a good rant.

Umm, I don't think it is, not by anyone with any knowledge of music at any rate, or by users of the expression I suppose

Reaching a gradual increase doesn't really mean the same as reaching the big bit

 

[matticus]

A crescendo is also used to refer the loudest part of an increasingly loud sound but feel free to consider me wrong as it's not fair to spoil a good rant.

Indeed.

 

[icowden]

A crescendo is also used to refer the loudest part of an increasingly loud sound but feel free to consider me wrong as it's not fair to spoil a good rant.

You are right that it has become common to use it in that way, but etymologically @Profpointy is correct. It comes from crescere - to grow.

 

[mustang1]

Leccy windows (electric windows
Sarnie (sandwich)
Biccie (biscuit)
One for the road (have a beer before you leave the pub and, presumably, start driving, wth?)

 

[Alex321]

Umm, I don't think it is, not by anyone with any knowledge of music at any rate, or by users of the expression I suppose

Reaching a gradual increase doesn't really mean the same as reaching the big bit

The term is not specific to music and outside music that is the most common meaning, but even in the musical sense, dictionaries all seem to agree it can be used that way.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/crescendo
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crescendo

 

[Profpointy]

The term is not specific to music and outside music that is the most common meaning, but even in the musical sense, dictionaries all seem to agree it can be used that way.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/crescendo
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crescendo

Well, you learn something every day. Still don't like it and find it annoying and wrong even if I myself said that new meanings arise if people use them in that way

It's a bit like "begging the question" which, equally annoyingly, is used by many people to mean "that is the important question" rather than its, dare I say proper meaning, of the logical fallacy of "assuming that which you are trying to prove", a "circular argument"

 

[stephec]

You've missed out the most important for this forum's primary membership 🙃

OAPs?

 

[Dogtrousers]

"up to"

This weaselly phrase in advertising means "it's possible you may get this benefit but you probably won't". So we have "Lasts up to 10 weeks". It may only last 5 minutes, or even zero minutes, those are both "up to 10 weeks". But they give you a solid guarantee that it won't last longer than 10 weeks.

They seem to throw it in as a disclaimer. Here's a benefit you might get from our product. But don't hold us to that.

Now I may have misheard this, but in an advert for incontinence pads (sandwiched between the stairlift adverts and funeral plan adverts) I'm sure I heard the promise of "Up to zero leaks". What does that mean? You may get zero, but you may also get a negative number?

 

[icowden]

This weaselly phrase in advertising means "it's possible you may get this benefit but you probably won't". So we have "Lasts up to 10 weeks". It may only last 5 minutes, or even zero minutes, those are both "up to 10 weeks". But they give you a solid guarantee that it won't last longer than 10 weeks.

See also

"SALE! SALE! SALE! UP TO 90% OFF! SALE! SALE! SALE!"

Translation: We have 1 item that no-one wants so we have discounted it from £10 to £1. Everything else just has a discount of 10%.

 

[lazybloke]

Now I may have misheard this, but in an advert for incontinence pads (sandwiched between the stairlift adverts and funeral plan adverts) I'm sure I heard the promise of "Up to zero leaks". What does that mean?

Hopefully it means less likelihood of a poonami on a stairlift being fatal.

 

[Jameshow]

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.

I've got something to fess up to....!