Local speech that drives you crazy

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"Basically" drives me nuts, especially when used 5 or 6 times in as many sentences. If something is that "basic", it should be able to be condensed down to one sentence!
So basically, you're saying that the word basically is basically used too much? :ROFLMAO:

I love this thread! :LOL:
 
Timothy said:
So basically, you're saying that the word basically is basically used too much? :ROFLMAO:

I love this thread! :LOL:

You got it. I work with well educated folks who talk just like that!
 
I don't think they are regional but the ones I hate to hear are "you know" and "if you know what I mean". Many times they are repeated several time in a conversation.
 
"Basically" drives me nuts, especially when used 5 or 6 times in as many sentences. If something is that "basic", it should be able to be condensed down to one sentence!

oops :ermm: I know I'm guilty of this one. I think it comes from my time teaching sheet metal and also as a skydiving instructor. Sometimes you are giving a lot of information to process, so you insert a "basically" to sum up the most important thing or things to remember. If you are reading your students' faces and they look blank, you need to rephrase and condense things. Inserting a "basically" can help you continue and emphasize the overall thought you are trying to convey.
Basically I am saying that I use that word a lot. :angel:

;)
 
I'm having so much fun reading these posts and there are a lot that I agree with, and a few that I'm guilty of. There are even a few that I agree with and am guilty of.

Word over used by fashion/entertainment media, svelte. While standing in line at the grociers I once counted eight magazine covers that used the word.

Also, the gaming/geek(wannabe) crowd(sp?) have ruined the words elite and epic.

The one that drives me the craziest though is dude, because it slipped into my own language. I hadn't used the word since the seventh grade and cursed the two friends who used it so often that it slipped into my own speech patterns.

"Dude! I agree with..." Pause, stare, glower, "Curse you both."

They knew immediately why I was cursing them. They just laughed extremely hard and crowed victory. I still occasionally mentally curse them for that word even though I manage to edit the word out of my thoughts most of the time.

Longwindette signing out. :)
 
I am having a great time reading this thread, but I am sort of afraid to add anything. You know what I mean?
 
In a service type of a business people will be trained to say you are welcome. I guess in the head of a person “you welcome” means that person actually did something for him/her and the “thank you” that he/she just gave was really deserved and worked for, and it was his/hers obligation to say thank you. If somebody says “no problem” that means they did not work hard for it and/or they did not mind doing it at all.
I had to laugh at this one. How often do you hear in interviews on TV: Thank you. Thank You. THANK YOU? My husband just looks at me and says, "Whatever happened to "You're Welcome?" As far as "No Problem" goes, I agree with you in English, but "de rien" or "da nada" are acceptable in their respective languages. Although it actually translates pretty much the same as "no problem", in spirit it means more that it was your pleasure.

I used to have a southern friend (southern U.S., that is) who would answer almost any compliment with a put down. For example, if you complimented her on anything, her reply would be something like, "oh, this old dress. It's really a piece of garbage I picked up for nothing ... " I finally had a talk with her. The response to a compliment is thank you, what you're doing is putting down the taste of the person who compliments you.
 
i have always been good at spelling--nothing i ever had to work at, it just comes naturally. many words whose meaning i don't know, and never use, i could spell with ease. it's a "recognition" of sorts. if i see a word spelled incorrectly it looks wrong to me, and it can be somewhat irritating. typos in books, books that i've paid good money for, drive me crazy! spellcheck is a mixed blessing for me. i like that it picks up my typing errors, and on rare occasion, my incorrect spellings. what really surprises me though are the very many times spell check indicates a wrong spelling when the word is actually spelled correctly. in the beginning, i was just obsessive enough to look up the word in the dictionary every time it happened. 99% of the time i found that it was spell check that had it wrong. these days, if i am confident about a word and i see it underlined in red, i just ignore spell check and go with what i know. i really should start up a list of words that spell check doesn't recognize. and i know that my vocabulary is not so obscure or arcane that this should be happening, or is it?:)

This strikes me as funny. When I first moved here, the owner/editor of the local weekly asked me to write a column. I do not get paid, I just write when the spirit moves me. After about a month, a woman stopped me in the parking lot and asked if I was Claire. Yes. "Please write more, and more often! You must be the only person in the town who knows that spell check won't correct they're, their, and there!" Turned out she was the newspaper's proofreader. Spelling come naturally to me as well. I'm not saying I never mess up, But I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I grew up learning by memorization, which fell out of favor as a method of teaching. American English has so many languages within it that memorization is the only way to do it.
 
Interesting thread. I must be getting old, set in my ways.
I remember my oldest bursting through the front door like a hurricane. Right behind him was his new friend. They had just moved here. His Mother just happened to be sitting at my dining room table at the time. She's a High School Teacher.

The first thing he says is " YO MOM!" Did that ever set me off. He's never referred to me like that before. I didn't like it.
I sat that child down so quick and gave him a few words of advice. That to this day puts the fear of God in him.

" Don't you ever refer to me like that again! It's Hi or hello Mom. Understand?
Especially don't let your Dad hear that gang slang coming from your mouth. He doesn't like it or appreciate it. Your not a gang member. That young man is a bad habit that won't be tolerated in MY house. Now that we've come to this understanding I'm sure it won't happen again." It never did.

His new friend never came back over. Or hung around with my son again.
His Mother apologized saying it's what her son hears at school. She didn't realize it as being offensive. That comment boggled my mind.
I told her what you chose to tolerate in your profession or home isn't any of my concern.
What's is or isn't tolerated in my home is the " Wardens Duty" That's me. To take care of.

Munky.
 
I think that this thread went off track almost from the start. The lines that most of you are talking about are mostly from movies and tv. They catch on. I worked with two people that if it weren't for entertainment quips, they could not hold a conversation. "Are you with me?".
I had a friend years ago that would put the word "then" at the end of every sentence. It used to drive me crazy. Another used the word IDEAL instead of IDEA. She thought is sounded cute. I told her that it made her sound ignorant.
Here locally the word ignorant is interchanged for rude. The word contrary is used often, not always in the correct context.
What really annoys the hell out of me is the wide spread use of what I refer to as "THUG LANGUAGE! SEE WHAT I AM SAYING?? I am glad we don't have to be subject to it "UP IN HERE".!!!!!:rolleyes:
 
I agree with many of the previous posters, especially regarding the use of the word "like" but the mis-pronunciation of one word in particular really gets me going. I don't know if this is a regional mistake or if it has some other origin. My apologies to our many Canadian members but the word is "asphalt" not "ashphalt"! I have met Canadians in or from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba ( not sure about the east) who all pronounce asphalt with an "h" after the "s", my DH included errm...... at least he did until I pointed it out. I have even heard newscasters mis-pronounce asphalt. Can anyone offer an explanation for the mis-pronunciation?
 
Okay, the following may be slightly OT, but I believe generally falls under the purview of this thread, as it consists of phrases that LOL "drive me crazy"! Unfortunately, it's not confined to local or even regional, but has gone 'national'.
I'm referring to the blatant misuse of the language and the 'loss' of an entire tense, which has apparently become 'general accepted speech'...
Almost without exception you will hear in conversation, on radio and TV:
"He should have went", instead of "He should have gone".
"i could have came", has replaced "I could have come", or 'could have ran' for 'could have run'.
And "did" for "done" really hurts!
Agree or disagree and what other aberrations bother you?
 
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