My ex BF said I used, "Believe you me" all the time. That's probably why he broke up with me.

It is funny about the "momma" thing. I guess something needed to be added to the slang lexicon to replace the overused "girlfriend." This reminds me of the Yiddish term "bubbe" which is used as a term of affection for anyone, even though a "bubbe" is a grandmother, which takes its origin from the babushka scarves that russian grandmothers wear. If you really want to be annoying you can call someone "bubbeleh," which is the diminutive form. Its transltion would be "sweetie" though, not "little grandmother."

I call my daughters sister. It's fun :) I kind of like the concept of "24-7" but my DH hates it. True dat is fun too. I like to think I don't overuse anything. I even try to go easy on the net jargon, like lmao, etc.

But I do hate phrases like "whatever" that indicate no one is even listening.

I think "mommy" is an affectionate term, most often used in Hispanic culture. Papi, too and many times with kids. I call my daughter mommy....:)

Funny about "it is what it is"

That's an expression my Mom and my Nana used when telling us that some things must be accepted. It was more a statement of faith than anything else. I use it now and again in the same vein.

Now I hear it used all the time as a casual phrase to blow off just about anything and I must admit it bothers me.

The one that really gets me is the current trend of stating an opinion an opinion on something followed by....."I'm just saying". What is that suppose to mean?

"My bad".........drives me nuts.

Maybe it is more of a Southern thing, but I hate to hear.... "have a good one!" or more usually "have a good un!" A good......what? A good day? A good afternoon/morning? A good life? A good WHAT???

Well, it's lame to end with just "one!"

Sherry,
We must have been separated at birth. See my post about a year ago...
Jo

Here is a link that might be useful: It is what it is

"my bad" drove me nuts when it was the big thing with kids in my group. Not sure of it's origin so don't take offense if this is the norm in your part of the world.... I just didn't get it at all.

David

AARGH!! Teresa-nc...
"have a good one...now, ya hear?"
AAAACH!!!
And as a response to "thank you very much"...some clod says "uh hu"...

Another one I often here, usually by aging jocks, is "whatnot" as in, "you got your keys, luggage and whatnot..." Don't know why that particular group uses it around my town. My guess is a coach way back when used it on them.

"You guys" sends me into a red rage. I am not a "guy", I am a mature woman, a fact which is very obvious. Being addressed as "you guys" by wait personnel is insulting at best.
Another is "git 'er done" which I think may be a Texanism. Ghastly! I am fluent in three languages, English, Spanish and Texan. Texan was the hardest to learn.

Jo,
I forgot about your thread! I had even posted a reply on it. LOL

Texan was the hardest to learn.
LOL!! I'm not sure if "git 'er done" is Texan or not, I don't personally know anyone who says it (I live in Houston).

But even if it is, I'll try to redeem my state by reminding you that "y'all" is our preferred plural form of "you" here instead of the hated "you guys".

:)

marlingardener,
My hubby detests it when a waiter or waitress says "You guys." He always reminds him that his wife is NOT a guy. LOL. It doesn't bother me. The southern Y'all covers both genders, but us northerners don't have a phrase like that that encompasses both. I guess a waiter could say, Are you both ready to order, but that sounds odd to me.
My hubby also hates "No problem." To him, it implies that potentially we could have been a problem. He also thinks that "You are welcome" is a much more appropriate phrase.
Neither iof those phrases bother me.

That's what I love about the term, "y'all," although I hate when it's used to refer to a single person. I know I've brought that up, and it's considered correct southern grammer, but it still has me looking around to see who else might be standing beside me.

"Que Paso!" or "Que Pasa!" is a greeting I receive from some of my Hispanic co-workers. It bugs me because I'm never sure how to respond. "Nada" or "nothing" is, I guess, the typical response, but that's rarely the actual case. "Lots" is what I want to say. I usually just say "hi" or "hello" back to them, which just seems silly.

The new phrase that I've been hearing more and more lately, and drives me up the wall is "Have a blessed day." How am I supposed to do that? I guess it's a variation of "Have a good day" which people have gotten really tired of, but that's better than "have a blessed day." The best phrase I've heard along those lines is "make it a good day." One of our local t.v. news anchors says that, and I think it works because it's more active than passive.

Sally

"Git 'er done"....popularized by Larry the Cable Guy! I don't think he is from Texas, but a southern boy fo' sho'!

I hate "Have a blessed day", mostly because it was on a phone message from a young lady that stiffed me on a fee. I now equate sappy religious sayings to hypocritical behavior. It's phony baloney crapola!

When you start hearing middle aged white people talking slang like "My Bad" you know it is not hip anymore. LOL.

Duane

LOL Duane - fo' shizzle!

Here's the one that makes me nuts: "THAT'S what I'm talkin' about." I can stand that phrase. I hear it all the time on House Hunters when the hunters find what they are looking for. I hear it other places, too.

I have to come through an automated gate in the parking lot every morning. The stupid gate says "Welcome to XXXXX Hospital and have a great day." I want to punch it in the chops every morning. There is an equally inane comment when I leave, too. Bad enough coming from a human being, but intolerable when a talking gate wishes you a great day.

LIKE! When 'like' is used as a modifier in every two words of speech, I, like, want to shoot myself! Better yet, I want to shoot the speaker!

So true, Duane!

Leel, I feel likewise!

Sally

I think you really have to be careful with the "blessed day" saying because I too have had people stiff me and end the conversation with that. To me it's true meaning is, Go to "that other place where the unblessed end up!" That's what they are really saying. I mean it might be OK for a mom to say that as her kid leaves the house for school or something like that, but if you don't really know the person and don't really mean it, then isn't it blasphemy? (I can't spell blasphemey isn't THAT annoying!)

I am a true Midwesterner very guilty of "you guys" which I know sounds sexist but isn't really. I've tried to modify it to "you folks" or "you guys and gals" which is really corny, but I'm sorry, it is a Midwesternism and the "guys" part just isn't a strictly male reference any more than bubbe is a stictly grandmother reference. Of course no one out here says "You guys" so they hate the expression. I am always so happy when I'm back among my "you guys" people. For a while I lived in Pittsburgh, the land of "Y'ins."

When we visited Boston and the North Shore, we took a train from the North Shore to Boston. The conductor referred to us as "Yous guys." (Youse?) We were highly amused to hear that phrase in actual use.

Around here in Texas, bubba means good ol boy. (different spelling, I know.)

Sally

Philadelphians also say Youse but they say Yiz.

"Yo! Are yiz goin' down the shore?"

Regional accents are great.

I am guilty of using "you guys". It could very well be Midwestern as everyone around here says it, and it really does not have a gender specific meaning.

Not a lot of slang or "hip" terms bother me, but "My Bad" really rubs me the wrong way. I can deal with just about any of the others mentioned here except that one. LOL

Linda

For awhile it was "Yo, dude!" as an expression of surprise, as a greeting, as an acknowledgement.

1. What the HE!! does "yo" mean?
2. I am most certainly not a dude!
I t makes the speaker sound stupid. Many of which are not. I don't think. :+)

Deanna

I hate "you guys" too. Especially in the business world. "You" is perfectly fine as a plural.

I like to use y'all here and in emails.

DH gets on phrase kicks. His current one is "at the end of the day" -- aaack.

The other day one of my idiomatically-challenged Chinese friends remarked "get into town!" LOL.

Here's one that can go anytime: "Shut! Up!"

That reminds me of when I was back in high school and our exchange student from Argentina kept saying, "No problem, Piece of pie." We kept telling her, "NO, it's 'Piece of cake,' 'Easy as pie!'" but she couldn't figure out why it would make a difference. Back then people used to also say, "Cake City." I think they picked it up from the physics teacher, that was one of his sayings. As in, "Don't worry, this physics problem will be easy, cake city." Of course his students may have thought otherwise! It really bugs me when people say "easy as pie" because I am pie crust challenged. "Tedious as pie crust" I might believe, but I doubt that one will catch on. I way overuse POSH and tasteful. But then I hang out with people who like to dream up annoying sayings! We even coined a phrase, "Nice usage" when someone came up with some kind of word play we liked.

I can usually avoid saying "you guys" in a professional situation. But it kind of gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when I do get to use it. Like when I'm home visiting and my mom, (a former english teacher no less), says to me and my dad, "OK, What do you guys want for dinner?"

I'm not crazy about "you guys," "y'all," or "y'ins" either, but I can't think of what to substitute. They all serve a really useful purpose because our English language doesn't have a second person plural pronoun -- unlike Spanish, French, Italian, and probably every other language. Sometimes "you" by itself just doesn't sound right when you're speaking to more than one person. In some parts of the country they just add an s sound to you -- it sounds like yas or yuhs.

So it's a deficiency in the language, not the speaker. Necessity is mother of invention, I guess.

lpink, I like "nice usage!" This past weekend I spent in Hilton Head SC with some girlfriends from high school. In talking about how we don't like to swim in the ocean, my fear of "those crispy critters" got me a large laugh from my friends! Yay me...nice usage!

carnelian - "our English language doesn't have a second person plural pronoun -- unlike Spanish, French, Italian, and probably every other language."

I don't think that's exactly true. I can't speak for other languages but at least in German and French the issue is more that they have formal and informal forms of the singular pronoun. There's no differentiation between the formal form and the plural form.

If you find "you" to be understated sometimes, I believe "all of you" or even "you all" fit the bill and are within standard English.

Not that I have a problem with "you guys." "Y'all," well there you need to think about who you are or where you're from before you make yourself sound silly.

There's no differentiation between the formal form and the plural form.

Actually, that's true of y'all in certain usage as well. I've heard "y'all" used as a formal form of "you", directed at a single person, many times. There must be some explanation as to why plural sometimes = formal. As in the Queen saying, "We are not amused" for example.

If you find "you" to be understated sometimes, I believe "all of you" or even "you all" fit the bill and are within standard English.

After all, what IS "y'all" but a contraction of "you all"? That's my stance and I'm stickin' to it. :)

I had a Japanese co-worker who proclaimed during a rain storm.."It's raining like a cat and a dog". I thought that was cute. Funny how a little change in wording makes a big difference.

lowspark - no arguments here!

Duane - I have a Chinese collegue who, whenever I've helped her out, starts her thank-you email with "I am very much apprecatiated for..." Gives me a smile every time!

That reminds me of the movie, Short Circuit. The Indian character does a lot of that, taking a common expression and mangling it. Very funny.

I have seen some strange, bizarre drivers, but you. You will be awarded a cake.

So now I am having now job to speak about. I will have to smack the sidewalk.

Right now the most overused word is "actually", and on one of the court TV shows, a young woman started a sentence with "I actually went..." and the judge stopped her and said, "There's no actually in this court. You either did something or you didn't," and she never said "actually" again.

I dislike the improper use of the second person pronoun. Some people use "you" when they are really talking about themselves or people in general and say things like "You feel bad when you yell at your kids," instead of "I feel bad when I yell at my kids." A better way to use a general pronoun (if that is what is meant) would be to use "one", or "people" or something in the third person.

Lars

"My bad" is the only phrase I can think of that really bothered me. My girls say "these ones" and "those ones", instead of "these" and "those" and I correct them. I thought that was a White Cloud-ism, and then I noticed it nearly everywhere I went. So I notice, but it doesn't really bother me

I've never called my girls Mommy or Mama, and to avoid the dreaded "you guys" I referred to them as ladies. They used to laugh because when we were ready to leave somewhere I'd invariably say "Onward and upward, ladies". Ashley would roll her eyes and ask why I didn't just say "let's go".

I also find the local slangs and phrases interesting and usually spend a lot of time wondering about their origins. Of course, I can speak fluent Midwesterner and profanity, along with English so I believe that makes me at least bi-lingual.

Annie

Lars,
I laughed when I read your comment about saying "one" instead of "you." I totally agree with you, and I was wondering if anyone would correct me in my post above where I said ". . .when you're speaking to more than one person." I (actually) had written "when one is speaking" but changed it to "you're" because I was afraid I was already sounding like a know-it-all. It's really too bad that hardly anybody uses "one" that way anymore.

It's hard not to eaves drop while standing near someone talking loudly on their cell phone, so yesterday I was treated to one of the words that bugs me in it's over use. The lady was making plans to meet a friend, and she kept saying "That would be awesome, great!" The word, "awesome" has been diminished and trivialized. It used to be a powerful word, meaning something that was awe inspiring. I guess "great" could fit into that category, too.

Sally

Carnelian, I remember a line from the movie The Women:

Sylvia Fowler: Our friend, Mrs. Stephen Haines, simply dotes on this... Her husband picked it out for her... Perhaps you waited on him?
Crystal Allen: I'm afraid I don't remember. You see, there are so many men who come in here.
Sylvia Fowler: Awfully good looking... I'm sure you wouldn't overlook him.
Crystal Allen: I'm sorry, but when one's mind is on one's own business...
Sylvia Fowler: Of course... And as you say, you have so many men.

Crystal could have said "you" instead of "one", but by making it obviously general, it could be interpreted that she is talking about herself instead of Sylvia.

Lars

I'm another who hates to hear "you guys" and over here it's not used by English-speaking people I've met.
I guess it really stands out when I'm in Canada and hear it, since I'm not used to it in an English conversation.

British tend to say, when speaking to a group of women...."you ladies", as in "Would you ladies like to have coffee now?". In a mixed group of English-speaking people, "folks", "everyone" or "people" might be used, as in "How is everyone getting to the party?", rather than saying "How are you guys" .....etc. "What are you people doing for dinner?", "Do you folks all have a ride?" etc as examples.

I know some British who use ..."at the end of the day" (I don't care for that expression either).

Sally2...."Que pasó?" is one which is used here as an every day expression by the Canary people. Years ago when we had a new gardener, I couldn't figure out what he meant when he said that to me as a greeting. It means literally "what has happened", pretty well an exact translation of what we might say..."What's new?", when seeing someone after a few days. At first I might have responded with ..."nada" (nothing is new) until I realized that other locals just answered with a normal greeting..."Hola....que tal?" Hi, how are you?

I guess English speaking people might respond when asked what's new....with ...not much, or nothing new or something like that, but in Spanish the speaker is not necessarily interested in a blow by blow of what has happened since they last met.

And true that Spanish also distinguishes between familiar and formal versions of 2nd person singular and plural. "Vosotros" would be used to address a group of close friends whereas "Ustedes" would be the formal version.

"Chicos" might be used for a group of youngsters and though "chico" refers to a boy, (chica to a girl) "chicos" is meant as a collective and could be used to address a group of mixed boys and girls. Probably where "guys" might be used in North America.

SharonCb

Thanks for the explanation, Sharon. It makes a lot more sense to me now.

Sally

Lars
Ha,ha - I love that movie! I've seen the two older versions quite a few times but haven't seen the new one from a year or so ago.

When I started reading this thread, I was going to say "my bad" bothered me too. Glad there are others it also bothers. I remembered the previous thread and thought that this was it just being bumped back up.

One thing that really bothers me is people asking "how are you" or telling to "have a nice day". When a clerk or stranger utters either of those phrases to me, I do not respond. I ignore. If I ever ask someone how they are doing, it's because I care about them. I don't say it to total strangers. I think it's fake and tacky. When I worked at Disney as a youngster, I was often told to have a "magical" day. That got old fast!

"My bad" really grates on my nerves.
"How is everything tasting?" I REALLY REALLY HATE THAT ONE!!!
"Grow the business."
"New paradigm", related to business. (thankfully, this has fallen out of favor.)

I experienced a new one a few months ago. My boss needed something done, and asked me, in an email: "Please action this." "ACTION THIS??!!!" WTF?!! I was so (can't think of the right word) by it, that I actually picked up the phone and said "Action this?!" to him. Usually not a good thing to do to your boss, but luckily I can say things like that to him. Still...."Action this." Are you kidding me?

Here's one that I just don't understand, so please help me. I keep hearing something like "my xxx needs cleaned". It should be "my xxx needs cleaning", or "my xxx needs to be cleaned." Right? Please?!!

Weed some of those would annoy me too. It sounds like there's a growing tendency over there to drop words out of a sentence....could that be the result of text messaging?

So instead of saying "take action on this" your boss said "action this". Also..."my car needs to be cleaned" is shortened to "my car needs cleaned".
That would really drive me up the wall. (Okay so that was another old cliché.)

Really a shame when conversation or the written word is becoming so abbreviated as to be unintelligible.
I also get mad when I see acronyms which are understandable only to those who use them.

SharonCb

Action this? Ha...that would burn my britches and make my blood boil at the same time. It feels like being talked down to. Bob Seger's "feels like a number, I'm not a number" song suddenly starts playing in my head.

Working in an office really seems to bring about some very bad cliche' wordings that get picked up seemingly on a national level..and they usually all got my goat at one time or another. It was as if every manager was a clone who had to parrot whatever the 'hip' office jargon of the day was. Really turned me off. I can't remember a lot of them since I flushed them out of my memory bank, but the one I remember hating the most was "Moving forward..." Anything that followed those two words in a memo or email....WAS NEVER GOOD! LOL. How could you not hate those two dang words!

Duane

I don't know the exact geographical boundaries, but dropping "to be" is Pittsburghese. As in "The house needs cleaned, the car needs fixed," ect. I was introduced to this idiom when I lived near there for three years. Not everyone does it. I imagine it stems from one of the immigrant populations that settled there, not quite mastering all the subtleties of the English tenses and the verb "to be." I know stuff like this gave me fits when I was learning German. My grandmother, a Polish immigrant whose native language was Yiddish, always used to say, "Make the light" for "Turn on the light." And she also used to say, "I reminded myself" instead of "I remembered." It was only when I learned German that I figured out where those expressions came from!

"Action this." I love it! I'm going to start using it lol! You've created a monster Weed!

Don't worry you guys, since I'm basically a plebe, my ability to tell anyone to "action this" is severely limited! ;)

My bad is one I really hate. It brings a totally unnecessary element to common interactions.

Along those lines, I've developed an allergy to: "I'm loving this" or"I'm needing this". What happened to"I love..." or "I need..." ??

Lpink, the verb "to be" in Russian exists only in the infinitive form and is never conjugated and almost never used. Perhaps that's where it came from.

I have a lot of pet peeves about British English - the main one being that they almost always add "and" after "try" instead of "to". They will say, "Try and do better," instead of "Try to do better." When "and" is added, the "try" part is unnecessary since the possibility of failure is not considered. They don't make this mistake in the past tense, however. I do like the way the British pronounce the word "water", as it is spelled, instead of the way Americans do, as if it were spelled with a "d".

I've observed a number of ways that the phrase "isn't it" from "innit" from Cockneys to "iddinit" in the American South. I've also heard "I'm going to" pronounced a number of ways from "I'm gonna" to "Imonna" to "Imo" or "Ima". That one amuses me, but I hate it when people who are giving demonstrations (especially chefs) start a sentence with "What I'm going to do next is I'm going to..." instead of starting with "Next I'm going to..." I tend not to like to hear too many sentences starting with "what" unless they are questions. I will change channels in the middle of a show when I hear that sentence structure twice.

I'm not too bothered by "My bad," but then I always thought it was "'m I bad", a contraction for "Am I bad."

I like it when a stranger says "How are you", which is more common now than "How do you do," but has the same meaning/function of being a polite pleasantry. In Mexico City, everyone I would meet in a social setting would say, "Hola, que tal?" which means "Hi, how's it going?" and an appropriate response was "Que tal?" This was common among the upper class in Mexico City, but if I said it to the more common people from more remote areas, they would say that I sounded like a Mexico City snob.

Lars

I do like the way the British pronounce the word "water", as it is spelled, instead of the way Americans do, as if it were spelled with a "d".

We tend to say a lot of words like that, rolling the T so to speak. My mother's native language caused her to roll her Rs and but not her Ts. So when an R & T came together in a word, she'd roll the R and pronounce the T and we'd do it the other way around. As an example, "Myrtle" might sound like Mirddal when I said it, but like Mirrr-tal when she said it.

I've always thought of "my bad" as a cutesy substitute for "my mistake" or "my error". Yes, very over used.

I wonder if the I'm loving or I'm needing trend is an offshoot of the "I'm loving it" McDonald's ad.

And I agree about "awesome" too. I don't hear it now as often as I used to but some people are constantly saying it. How awesome is anything if EVERYthing is awesome?

Peppi, Sherry, and I had several occasions to remember this thread during our time together this week.

EX: Several times clerks asked "what was your name?" or "what was your zip code?". Being the wise a%& that I am, I responded "my name was XXX, now that I'm married it's XXX." Or "my zip code is the same, it hasn't changed."