To utilize more verbicized words...

I work in the IT industry second only to the military in vocabulariation, acronymization and verbicizationalism. I had a co-worker who thought the sun shined out of her - um - brain(?) and she would talk about capacitization (once even said capacitizationizing). Yep, for those of you at a loss, we were trying to ensure that we had only the amount of workers we needed to get the job done. Not too many, not too few.

I learned eventually to write down the words she made up so that I could attempt to avoid exploding with laughter.

no offense, but i think we pretty much removed Christ from Christmas ages ago. at least on a collective societal level. Avoiding "Xmas" isn't going to de-commercialize the holiday anymore than manger scenes in malls.

I've heard that the Greek word for Christ starts with the letters Chi and Rho, for us written XP, and so the abreviation for Christ is often shortened to an X. So the X is truly standing for, not "crossing out" Christ. Or, maybe that's just a Christian urban myth ;)

Capacitization? Where do people come up with these things? This is making me laugh hard. I so hate stupid words. My pet peeve (as I've written about before) is using nouns to make verbs. I just remembered one that aggravates me. I'm a mental health clinician and have recently heard that "he suicided due to marital problems." He WHAT? I guess we don't commit suicide anymore; we suicide. I'm throwing up. No, maybe I'll suicide.

For the record, the "X" part comes from a Greek abbreviation and was used by early Christians to denote "Christ." It's a very valid use and in no way is an attempt to take Christ out of Christmas. So it may be lazy, but it is in no way disrespectful. :-)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas for more detail.

Robbie--Aha, I should have read further I see. :-)My post provides some backup to that, so it's not an urban myth. I went to a protestant school growing up and my Dad was fairly scholarly about the Bible stuff, so I can backup what wiki says, too.

Jason, speak for yourself. I personally haven't removed Christ from Christmas.

Robbie and Holly, thanks for the info. That's interesting.

Hm, good to know about the X, but I still don't like Xmas, maybe it is an aesthetic thing, Christmas just isn't the same as Xmas! And I am not a religious person, but I am somewhat of a traditionalist. Guess that is it.

i hate when people purposefully mispell words in names of businesses that are preschool or daycare related. Or just posters at school for like book fairs.

Kinder Kare

Skool is Kool

Reading is Kool come to our Skool book fair

i mean wth we're in school...how do we expect our kids to spell when we can't.

I try really hard not to use ty for thank you...if you're going to thank someone...have the courtesy to type it out. unless it's a text message.

This thread is hilarious! Thanks to one and all for making me laugh until tears ran down my face.

A word I actually love but I bet would end up on a bunch of folks' loathe lists is adolesce (to go through adolescence).

Nascent bugs me. And I despise any word that's got an extra syllable in it (orientate instead of orient, for example...I know that one's been mentioned).

Text-message-speak is horrendous, and it seems to be trickling increasingly into all sorts of other contexts. Reading Londonstani was a mistake I never intend to repeat...I hate LOL, and WTF, and IMHO, and all the rest of them. Though I do enjoy making up my own and confusing people with them.

And there's not much I hate more than the use of "quotes" to "emphasize" or "draw attention" to your words, seen most often on handwritten signs trying to sell me something. "Great" tomatoes, very "tasty"!

It may have been covered already, but "impact" as a verb-from-noun is one I really dread seeing: cars don't "impact", teeth do!

Lisa's quotation-mark-laden example above would leave me to conclude that "Great tasty tomatoes" was a euphemism for something salacious.

The thing I loathe more than anything else when people put an apostrophe in a plural word. I see it almost every time I pass a fast food restuarant nowadays...

TWO CHEESEBURGER'S FOR $2!

Grrrrr...

Okay, it's probably not fair to poke fun at sportswriters trying to tackle legal/procedural language. This Mitchell Report thing...well, sportswriters aren't known for the breadth of their knowledge and vocabulary. But this can't possibly be right:

"In that case, Selig handed out the punishments with agreement from the union, which has since grieved Guillen's suspension at his insistence."

Does one "grieve" a grievance? It sounds like the players union wore black armbands for a day to express their feelings of sadness and loss that Jose Guillen was suspended for 15 days due to past use of human growth hormone, not that they submitted a formal disagreement with the sanctions imposed.

Another thing that bugs me is when people say "hung" when they meant to say "hanged." I know it sounds wrong, but if someone is dangling from a rope around their neck, it's "hanged."

another example of turning a noun into a verb/adverb. god, I HATE IT! directors are "lensing" films, writers are "authoring books", mothers and fathers are "parenting", people are "suiciding". no, no, a thousand times no!!! i'm off to "calendar" now as it's a new month.

Ooh, Sean, I love words that use a different form in one specific context, like 'hanged'. I seriously mourn the passing from the baseball lexicon of the phrase, "flied out to left." 'Flew out' just doesn't have the same only-in-baseball ring to it. He 'flew out' of LAX, not to the center-fielder.

I hate the words "babyish" and "sophisticated". I blame the Babysitters' Club books. Ann M. Martin just loved those words.

In musical culture I hate the term "rawk" used in place of rock, as in "rawk 'n' roll duuuude." If someone uses it in a review I pretty much automatically don't like the band, the writer, and the magazine. Also, people who don't know that the 'n' in rock 'n' roll has apostrophes before and after it make me put my hands in my pockets so they don't strike out at someone on their own. If you're a music critic that should really be something that you have a handle on.

In music subcultures, the use of an 'x' in place of 'ks' in words like punx and thanx make me glad I don't have a mohawk anymore.

Sean,
The hanged/hung situation has always been a pet peeve of mine! I hung a picture on the wall. The guy hanged himself!

to Christen, regarding signage

HA! i'm a graphic designer, and i did two of my internships at environmental graphics/architecture firms, and let me tell you, the fact that signage is NOT a word irks me to this day. seriously. because saying that i designed "signs" just sounds silly and juvenile, but to say i designed SIGNAGE sounds very, i don't know, professional. at least, in a resume it sure looks a lot better. i actually didn't realize it was an industry made-up word until i couldn't get the spell check to recognize it, even on a mac.

the funny thing is, the company i work for now makes up words willy-nilly. i think it's kind of hilarious, but it sure makes a lot of work for our QA department.

oh, and irregardless is my personal language equivalent to nails on a chalkboard. it makes me want to throttle people who say it. not that i should talk, i'm guilty of using nouns as verbs with impunity (i blame it on the legitimization of "googling" as a real word).

Xysea, i know your comment was from way back in september (regarding cooter as a turtle and how offensive it is when used as a term for lady parts), but i just had to share a little phrase my gay former roomate used to use constantly. we both watched a LOT of television, and whenever someone (male or female) was taking up too much room on the couch, he would tell them to "scooch your cooch," which i found terribly amusing. i even find myself slipping back into it now and then with my boyfriend and male cat. it's just so much funnier than a simple "scoot over."

I just found this thread so forgive if I repeat earlier comments. Re sportscasters and their use of language....defense is a noun, defend is a verb, defensed is not. Also I cannot stand the use of disrespect as anything other than a noun (those nails on a chalkboard effect!).

As for "scooching" that made me laugh b/c just about every woman I know understands where you always hear the words "scooch down" and then "slide back".

Oh, you guys are just mean. What is the English Language if not a bunch of borrowed, mispronounced, evolved, and combined words!

Try using suffixes and prefixes, but no root word: "Ining", "Levism", "Mandor." Its fun to hear them thrown about during a meeting.

Oh, Brad, I feel sorry for you and whatever town you live in that music criticism is that horrifying! Or are you reading the national music press? Have they deteriorated that badly since I gave up on them years ago (mostly for not even knowing of the existence of the bands I was listening to)?

I do use the word "rawk" when I write about music (mostly just to amuse myself and my friends, I don't do it professionally), but it's always derogatory. As in, "...sounded like some retro-big-hair RAWK band, with a singer using that horrible RAWK voice...". I imagine I would shake my head in pity at anyone who used it in seriousness.

Oh, god, I just came across another phrase I hate. You're reading along in a story (I won't mention what I'm currently reading, because the jury's still out on whether I like the rest of it or not, though I'm condemning this sentence right this minute), and suddenly your first-person narrator pulls back the camera, and says:

"And that's how we came to be..." doing whatever it is that drives the next plot point. Oh, so unnecessary. Did you think I forgot what the characters were doing in the rest of the paragraph? That I'd get confused when whatever happens next actually happens, and the characters are doing whatever it is they're doing at the time? Did you think you didn't explain clearly enough what the characters were up to? Because a) you did. And b) if you thought you didn't, you should rewrite, not recap.

(And it didn't help one bit that the offending sentence ended with "...in the purple dusk." I'm sure there's a time and a place for "the purple dusk" but it's not at the end of a sentence that already started with a tired cliche.)

I don't know if this has been said anywhere else, but if there's one word I hate most, it's PHONY. XP

Laurell K Hamilton posted the first chapter of her upcoming book. The horror of this reminded me of one of the phrases she overuses that I despise.

I can not stand when she says that something "just flat does it" for her.

I have come to despise the phrase "up for grabs." What does that mean? That you can just go up and grab whatever it is that's up for grabs? I usually associate the phrase with Jeff Probst from "Survivor," ("Immunity is up for grabs") but lately I hear well respected newscasters using it in association with the Democratic primary vote. Anyway, I'm getting sick of hearing it and wish they could come up with a more eloquent way of saying they have no idea who's going to win.

I've come to despise the phrase 'tipping point.' Yeah, the book did well, but now everyone who's read it is on the edge of their seats waiting for a chance to apply it in the workplace. Give it up.

Another problem for me is when anyone uses the word stalk to apply to man parts. Just call it a penis for Chris' sakes!

I don't know if these have been mentioned yet, but after a long week in the business world, I loathe:

Called out
Circled back
Reached out

Especially "reached out." I work with you, don't you dare touch me or I'll smack you!

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but the confusion over "healthy" and "healthful" is also a tad amusing, if not annoying.

Food cannot be "healthy" unless its health has been deemed good by its botanist or plant doctor. I believe people mean to say it is "healthful."

I'm pretty sure I just heard the word 'drownded' in a song I've loved for years. I'm just going to pretend I didn't.

I hate
'Topaz Eyes' and
'Sculpted Chest' and
'crooked smile'. I've heard them far, far, far too much. How about all y'all?

Ok, that's just silly. Really? Bad puns in Lovecraft? Yech.

I finally found a home! As a venerable, if not seminal, member of the Language and Pronunciation Police, I have a number of pet peeves - almost all of which have been mentioned in this entertaining discussion. Thank you for reassuring me that I am not alone in my quirks. I also have typos jump off the page splat into my eyes, even if the page is not in my hand. I find it difficult to restrain my urge to call a business and tell them about their incorrect copy when "it's" is used as a possessive in advertisements (telephone books, billboards, etc.) I could continue this list ad nauseum, but will end by saying it is wonderful to have found a home, complete with a contentious family. Thanks for the laughs!

"Its all he could do not to laugh/cry/whatever" that has to be the most annoying thing on the written world, so what did they do not to cry? just exist???? This was something said over and over in the Left Behind series and I have read it in other books as well ... just annoying.

"Utilize."

Just say "use" already!!

LOL! I agree with "utilize." It doesn't make anyone sound smarter...

"She looked at him with frank, intelligent eyes." Why do strong, female characters always seem to have "frank, intelligent eyes?" And usually in novels written by men.

"Presently" when used to mean "currently" or "at present" instead of its real meaning.

This isn't books but it keeps happening and I need to explode.

What's with adding "...ation.." onto every noun that comes along or word ending in 'ing'? For example..an access to a room becomes "the accessation to the room"!!! Loathing this is now my "loathation"!!!! And why does this make me feel so DISORIENTATED????? People are talking like this. It is so much angeration!!!!!!

Lots of truthiness to your observation!

I really, REALLY hate when people say "grow" instead of "increase". Several of the companies I've worked for say things like "We need to grow our business." UGH. I don't CARE that the words are (technically) synonymous-they mean different things, okay? If you are growing something, it damn well better be a plant!

My husband loves to bug me by saying we're conversating instead of conversing. I also hate irregardless and the mispronunciaion of mischievous. It's mis-cha-vis, not mis-chee-vee-us.

Authors who overuse similes. I just finished reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter. At first I found the author's use of simile to enhance her writing. By the end, I was thinking to myself, "If she writes one more time that the grass in the front yard is like ......., I am going to have to get in my car, drive to where she lives, and " well, you can guess the rest.

iterate and monetize

These words like to speed out of the mouths of young CEOs. When they say these words employees and investors will know something profitable is likely to occur yet they will still roll their eyes.

It's funny how the context in which you first became aware of a word or the person who overused it can make you never want to use it.

"Amazing"

I am REALLY getting tired of hearing this word used as an all-purpose descriptive.

"That color is amazing."
"My boss is amazing."
"This book is amazing."
"Dinner was amazing."

I WISH I lived in a world where everything was amazing, don't you?