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Expressions Which Annoy!


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[quote user="Opalienne"]'I hear what you say' and 'with respect', both followed by a disagreement with what has just been said by the other party.   Why not just say 'I don't agree with you'?[/quote]

Aren't they just little politesses from the days when people knew how to debate?   It's a device designed to take the sting out of what you're about to say, and (more importantly) it shows that you're listening.  People appreciate being listened to.   

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"If it ain't broke, break it and fix it!"

For a tiresome length of time this became the mantra of a group of

inadequates posing as middle management at a company by whom I was once

employed. They had picked it up from some witless consultant (age 23)

who had been engaged to tell us all how to better operate an oil

refinery (even though his degree was in Ancient History, not normally

recognised as a technical discipline).

The managers decided that their time would be best employed bumsucking

the consultant rather than concerning themselves with the operation of

the plant, a lunacay terminated only by a (fortunately) non-fatal

explosion on a new unit to which someone really should have been paying

some attention.

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I remember owl Mrs Cassidy from the bread caravan in Kildare, she used to say "would ya ever kiss me hole for an hour" when anyone asked her for a loan. Sometimes she would say "they will shite yellow in Mullingar first" a real character indeed.

Pat O'Hare would say "there will be quare riding of the owl goat tonight" when there was going to be an argument with his wife, and "the curse of cats mallanky on it anyway" when he done something wrong.

 

 

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[quote user="SaligoBay"]

[quote user="Opalienne"]'I hear what you say' and 'with respect', both followed by a disagreement with what has just been said by the other party.   Why not just say 'I don't agree with you'?[/quote]

Aren't they just little politesses from the days when people knew how to debate?   It's a device designed to take the sting out of what you're about to say, and (more importantly) it shows that you're listening.  People appreciate being listened to.   

[/quote]

I am not at all sure that they are.   In my experience they are usually followed by something much ruder than would have been the case if there hadn't been this 'polite' prefix!    I can't see anything wrong with 'I don't agree with you' - this also implies that you have been listening, doesn't it?  

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One that I really hope doesn't catch on (I hadn't heard it before but perhaps it's quite common in some parts) was Alan Sugar's statement on The Apprentice this week:  "As sure as I've got a hole in my a***"  How gross is that?  Ohh, there I go, using one of my own pet hates "gross" [+o(]
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[quote user="Cat 46"]

Leverage, as in "we could use this to leverage our sales/market share/position". 

Totally awesome

 

 

[/quote]

 

That reminded me of 'positioning', as in 'We should maximise the client's positioning vis a  vis decision makers' etc etc.   Horrible misuse of language!

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Also; the way Americans and some others answer a question such as "Have you got a boyfriend" with the reply "Yes I do".

What is wrong with "Yes I have" ?

I think ' Latte to go ' probably annoys me the most though !

It appears to go hand in hand with the current trend of awful coffee shops (Starbucks for instance) that sell mediocre beverages in pointless containers.

It has led to the very strange phenomenon of people wandering about the streets drinking coffee from oversized cups designed for babies !

Jenny.[6]

 

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It has led to the very strange phenomenon of people wandering about the streets drinking coffee from oversized cups designed for babies !

 

But, at the risk of over populating this thread,  don't you miss the days when we used to walk the streets eating our fish and two veg out of a plate originally designed to be read from ?

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Sorry about the 'signature' mistake J.

Eating fish and chips from newspaper is fine BUT not on the street,please !

I'm showing my convent upbringing here, I know, but there are certain things that should not be done on public streets.

Eating and drinking for instance.

Jenny.[:$]

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Jenny Rennes,

Americans say don't generally use  the expression 'have got' for possession, only 'have', which sounds more formal to Brits and isn't used as much. So it's quite normal for them to reply in the way they do.

Have you got a pen? Yes I have.

Do you have a pen? Yes I do.

However, I hate it when American English and British English are mixed. My French students do this all the time, I'm fed up of hearing down town for town centre and garbage for rubbish.  

 

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Please, please, please don't start me on management buzzwords!

Having had the misfortune to have been a very begruding founder member of the BIM (British Institute of Meetings), I have been subjected to endless streams of sheer nonsense, at times.

Perhaps the best one I ever heard, was, "Ensure that this information is cascaded upwards throughout the organisation." Now, that would be an interesting waterfall![Www]

In defence, at times, I have actually invented buzz words and measured the calibre of those attending the meeting, by their reaction to something idiotic, which sounded very whizzy. One has won when it's quoted back at you a few days afterwards![:-))]

 

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Let's run it up our ar*e h*les or was it flagpole ?  never could

get it right. I wasn't a yuppie like Delboy, I tried but couldn't keep

up with the right  in terms of the moment, simply preferred to just say b*****s, now that is my favourite word.[;-)]

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Slightly off topic I know but all this talk of management speak (sorry) forced me into this.

When my colleagues and I were being reorganized in 1990 we devised a game of Cliché Cricket to while away the boring meetings. We had a stock of clichés which we thought would be used. Each cliché had a score from one to six or counted as bowling you out. We had a batting order and when you were out the next person started their innings. It had the advantage of convincing those at the front that we were taking careful notes and allowed for masses of hilarity in the pub afterwards as we worked out who’d won. I can’t remember them all but “Hit the ground running” was the one I disliked most. To be out the Big Man himself had to use “In this day and age” - he obliged on frequent occasions.

Hoddy
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Sorry about the 'signature' mistake J.

I wasn't 'havin a pop' or even saying it was a mistake, merely raising the generality for comment. AFAIK there is no alternative single word that one can substitute.

Eating fish and chips from newspaper is fine BUT not on the street,please !

I'm showing my convent upbringing here, I know, but there are certain things that should not be done on public streets.

I wish the French convents would bring up their kids to manage their dogs better then !

Eating and drinking for instance.

As long as the litter ends up in the right place it is relatively innocent, and enjoyable, to watch the life go by as you eat. But eating with the mouth open - that is the road to damnation.

 

 

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