Words I Happen to Dislike

[Ellie]

"Narc" as shorthand for "narcissist." My favorite parenting Facebook group has a subgroup for single parents, and it took me wayyyyy too long to realize when people complained about their "narc exes" that they didn't mean they'd been married to tattletales.

[Ellie]

I hate when British/Australian/New Zealander people say "homely" to mean cozy and comfortable, i.e. what we Americans would call "homey." I know it's not WRONG (like the way so many people type "weary of" when they mean "wary of") but it drives me bananas. "Oh, I love your cabin, it's so ugly!"

[Warren]

Yeah
AMERICAN MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?

[Jake]

I hate when British/Australian/New Zealander people say "homely" to mean cozy and comfortable, i.e. what we Americans would call "homey." I know it's not WRONG (like the way so many people type "weary of" when they mean "wary of") but it drives me bananas. "Oh, I love your cabin, it's so ugly!"

I first encountered that in Tolkien; Elrond's home is named "The Last Homely House", which, as a kid, I thought was odd. "There are much nicer houses further along, but this is the last shitty hovel you'll encounter!"

[Eric the .5b]

"Spook", as in the Stirmer-derived "X is a spook" rhetorical construct where someone complains that people care about and adhere to some abstract concept the speaker dislikes. It's just so inane and precious.

[Warren]

In the Navy a "spook" was someone that worked in the cryptography room.

[Aresen]

'autogolpe' - the new trendy word for people describing Trump's recent actions. I don't think it's inaccurate, merely that the word is clumsy on the tongue. It does not feel like an English word. It sounds like a French service station and convenience store. [I first found the word myself when searching for a term to describe a head of government trying to undo a constitution to stay in power. It appears many others did the same search, because it has become the word of the day in the New Yorker and other similar publications.]

I would like to see a new coinage to replace it. ( 'incoup', perhaps?)

[dhex]

Yet another terrible term pushed by the media's endless supply of (and their publics endless thirst for) coup/civil war porn. Who knew we had so many torture me daddy types in America?

[Warren]

Yet another terrible term pushed by the media's endless supply of (and their publics endless thirst for) coup/civil war porn. Who knew we had so many torture me daddy types in America?

heh

[Eric the .5b]

'autogolpe' - the new trendy word for people describing Trump's recent actions. I don't think it's inaccurate, merely that the word is clumsy on the tongue. It does not feel like an English word.

That's because it's Spanish.

Autocoup or self-coup is its English equivalent.

[Aresen]

'autogolpe' - the new trendy word for people describing Trump's recent actions. I don't think it's inaccurate, merely that the word is clumsy on the tongue. It does not feel like an English word.

That's because it's Spanish.

That's not why it feels wrong. English has borrowed scores of words from Spanish - mesa, ranch, desperado, chaps among others - but they all 'fit' as English words. 'Autogolpe' is ugly and clumsy.

Autocoup or self-coup is its English equivalent.

'Autocoup' would work (note that 'coup' is a linguistic borrowing from French), but it also sounds clumsy.

[Eric the .5b]

'autogolpe' - the new trendy word for people describing Trump's recent actions. I don't think it's inaccurate, merely that the word is clumsy on the tongue. It does not feel like an English word.

That's because it's Spanish.

That's not why it feels wrong. English has borrowed scores of words from Spanish - mesa, ranch, desperado, chaps among others - but they all 'fit' as English words. 'Autogolpe' is ugly and clumsy.

Those other words feel "right" because they've been used by English-speakers for longer in North America.

[Eric the .5b]

I've hit the point of disgust with "[the] discourse".

It always seemed pretentious, but it's even worse than that when people try to elevate "some people yapping on Twitter or TikTok" to some great, solemn significance.

[Eric the .5b]

To dredge this old one up again:

We have probably talked about this before, but I hate "ask" when used as a noun. By people who are too corporate to use the words "question" or "request."

Weirdly, I'm not sure this is defensible on any logical grounds--"ask" is very concise in this use and nouning it at least vaguely makes sense--but I still hate it.

[dhex]

I use ask but only in the negative like "I get where xyz is coming from but project for xyz is a hell of an ask on this time frame'