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Let your next career move come to you.

Phrases that annoy the shit out of me

which I should be able to stomach, as when you get older you get wiser. But in my case as I get older I get less tolerant of people wasting chunks of our lives. 
 

"As I said" - fukc off, repeater

"It has to be said" - nope

"Reach out" - touch faith? Depeche Mode are due more respect.

"Socialise the idea" - why, is it lacking ability to share toys?

"Bear with me"  

The Hulk GIF

“Let me say this…” when uttered by a politician

David Cameron used to say this a lot. Er you’re the prime minister mate, just go ahead and say what you like.

A mate who had a post uni job in tele sales was told that "Bear with me" was strictly forbidden.  Not because its a mind gratingly tedious phase but because a customer had once responded by saying "grrr" (in the manner of a bear) following this request.

 

The mind boggles.

From a court perspective ones that grind my gears are "pray in aid" (seriously?  you are not in a Dickens spin off), "cannot gainsay" (i am in good company on this given the CACD have also said jog on to this one) and "moving forward" (no, i would like to meander in reverse please).

Or use of management speak where it isnt necessary (or quite works)

E.g. Can we carry out a benchmarking exercise on the various options?

I'd like to stress test that against a range of assumptions

Have you considered the counterfactual?

shall we stick a pin in it for later.

 

No. Let's stick a pin in you for now.

 

(really, never heard "socialise the idea"?)

 

Who remembers the character "Gus" in Drop the Dead Donkey? The scriptwriters were onto this in the early 90s.  I recall him saying let's have a scuba around my think tank. 

Lol, I always use "Thanks in advance" - the reason being that if someone does do something the first time, you don't need to go back to clutter up their inbox by sending another email just to say thank you. And if you don't say thank you, you look like an absolute aunt anyway.

Moving forward, Bails. Yes, that one. 

Pray in aid needs 2 weeks in the stocks. 

Gainsay needs tying between four horses.

 

 

Mind you, language is evolving.  I was asked by a client to express a view on the regulator's version of facts.  I said "looks like it's been visited by the Shittergeist" which I am hoping will catch on (but doubt it).

I am conscious of time.

 

Oh ARE you? I am not conscious of time or space. Cogito ergo sum.  I exist on a quantum basis so many different versions of you and me can exist at the same time/space point.  I hate you. But the other one of me tolerates you.  I bought you a watch to help your consciousness of time, matey. But my other me smashed it with your head. 

You did ask.

You know. A proper pan python.  Birth of an otter.  Curling it round the bowl, down and up the u-bend, causing the fatberg alarm at Southern Water HQ to go off in error.

Does it happen immediately, or can you control the timing to a degree?

Is there a desensitising effect over short periods of time, or is the response absolute?

By way of example, by the end of a meeting with a management consultant, are you sitting on a massive midden with your hair brushing the ceiling, or can you wait until the end of the meeting before evacuating?

A lot of people hate “with all due respect”, but I like it because it’s really passive-aggressive, which is often a useful and needed stance.

Mutts just for you I’ll use shittergeist in my next submissions. Mr X’s submissions fall into the shittergeist category of argument and may take some time to unpack up this flagpole. 

any adjective to describe conduct. 'disappointing' 'surprising' etc nothing anyone has ever done is any of those things really, is it. find a better way to communicate the impact of the conduct.

 

"In actual fact" when followed by mere opinion (and frankly also when followed by a fact or factually incorrect statement). A favourite of my FIL. Every time he said it I wanted to punch him. Although tbf every time he didn't say it I wanted to punch him then too.

"disappointing" and "surprised" are favourites of the Court of Appeal.

 

"We were surprised that defence counsel said X", "We were disappointed that prosecution counsel was a tw@t".  That sort of thing.  You've let the school down type stuff.

"Baffled" and "puzzled" are spectacularly pass agg.

I had an opponent not so long ago who came up with an argument mid trial that was entirely left field.  The only answer to it, were there to have been ANY merit in it at all, was to discharge the jury in a 2 month trial and start again as, it seemed, he had not read something clearly and wanted another go.

Judge looked at me after he had made submissions and asked what my view was.  My response was blunt but necessary "I have absolutely no idea what my Learned Friend wants, complete loss Your Honour".  She smiled, i assume thinking the same thing, and turned back to him to ask "Yes, what EXACTLY are you saying?"

Submission failed, trial carried on and, months later, the CACD pretty much said the same.  No point in being baffled or puzzled.  It was as close as i could get to saying What the Actual Fvck in Court.

also annoying when applied to newspapers

”we take the Times”

admittedly few people say that in these days of internet news

but I never took a newspaper, I used to buy one and read it

 

I once got shouted at by a very aggro barrister at a dinner at Inner Temple.  It was a student dining night when various of us had to sit with a gaggle of bar students who were looking for someone to tap up for advice, support and a means of at least getting interviewed for pupillage. One of those. You sat two practising barristers with four students and discussed generalities.

One of the students was talking about his time at university. I asked "what did you read?". Very quickly, before anyone could get a word in, this person butted in (not a student but one of the members of the Inn) with "Oh what did you read?  Read? Yes, you can tell who went to Oxbridge, can't you.  I didn't "read" stuff at university I "did".  What he means is "what did you do at university". Inner has its active left wing aggro merchants and there is much chippiness.  I don't think anyone there failed to understand the question. I said "nope. I didn't go to Oxbridge and I did lots of things at university - rugby, drinking, sex, hangovers, not the washing up, etc, but I read environmental science". She genuinely bollocked on about the term for about 10 mins.  Apparently the term is anti social mobility.

no it fooking well is not. If you prefer "do" then I will say "do" but nobody is baffled/surprised etc (see above) by the term "read" and it is not limited to the Oxbridgiensis.

 

This thread puts me in mind of a roffettigator who received a response thus

Your client is constantly upset, surprised and disappointing- suggest he seeks medical help

The use of "read" in that context is a bit odd though to my (still somewhat) American ears. Do you Brits wince when Americans tell you what they "majored in" in "college"?

I can cope with "take" for newspapers only because of evesdropping on a conversation in a country hotel in Somerset about a dozen years ago.  Two ancient codgers chatting away in club chairs

Oh, Klaus, did I tell you, I've started to take The Times

Really Peter?  Why so?

It's now in that smaller Berliner format. Much easier to read in a busy carriage than The Telegraph when you're on the train to London . 

Hmm. The Times eh.  Interesting.  Tell me, is it any good?

No. It's dreadful.

The 'zzette and I nearly spat out our G&Ts.

PerfidiousPorpoise20 Jul 21 11:38

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The use of "read" in that context is a bit odd though to my (still somewhat) American ears. Do you Brits wince when Americans tell you what they "majored in" in "college"?

 

nope. Because that's the term that applies to your tertiary education system. But if you used it about what students at British universities were up to then I'd have to beat your head into a pulp. 

 

Shall we take this offline?

 

You mean so that your weakness in the realms of rational thinking and persuasive advocacy, combined with your lack of diplomacy, the obvious regret now pulsing through your veins at the realisation that you shouldn't have started it if you didn't want to hear the counter-argument, is making you think it would be better if people didn't watch you being impaled?  No, let's finish the conversation which would be even quicker if you just said sorry I was being a bit of a dick there but normal service has been resumed and everyone can carry on.

a female partner at the consultancy I worked for once announced that she hated “deep dive” and would rather it wasn’t used in team meetings, as “it makes me think of muff-diving”.

The use of the word "hack" to describe pretty much anything other than breaking into a computer system.

Especially when what the "hacker" is describing is usually a slightly different way of doing a really mundane thing that didn't require any improvement in the first place, and actually, no, the fact that your amazing hack shaves a whole 22 seconds off the time normally required to boil an egg does not make you an innovative genius who is destined to take over the world, you stupid prick, it just makes you a stupid prick for thinking that the world needed to know about it and for making a motherfuvcking video about it, you stupid, dribbling fool.

* and breathe *

Not so much a phrase but the inability of Americans (and increasingly Brits) to use conditionals properly.

"If I would have known I would have something" instead of "If I had known I would have said something"

Properly boils my piss that. 

The use of the word "hack" to describe pretty much anything other than breaking into a computer system.

Also this.  The phrase "life hack" makes me want to hack the offender's head of with a rusty axe. 

Sir Woke XR Remainer FBPE MBE20 Jul 21 11:56

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“can I get” is both inoffensive and perfectly correct, although I personally say “can I have” or “I’d like”

 

 

get is just one of those words that has crept in and is not in fact necessary as there are other verbs that make the sentence clearer and less lazy and sometimes the term doesn't need to be replaced for the sense to be clear. 

"get" "got" "lot of" "like" etc are all terms which can be removed from the sentence and replaced with simple terms which make it more pleasant. 

 

Can I like get a flat white.

A flat white please

 

He's got a lot of animals 

he has many animals

 

And the "fag-end of"  Leaving the word of at the end of the sentence.  This is what I have got a lot of, like, frustration as a result of.  

 

 

 

 

Proper bwahaha at the coining of "shittergeist", Mutters.

You are wrong about "read" when referring to choice of subject though. Nobody uses it much outside of Oxbridge, and as such it constitutes a huge signalling device that you are one of the PLU crew. What on earth is wrong with "study"? It's understandable you may have this bias when regularly surrounded by wig nonces with their attendant crushing status anxiety. I don't know how there was enough milage in the subject to warrant a ten-minute ear bashing, however, so my sympathies on that.

While I have I my chippy hat on, I also 'umbly submit "summer" when used as a verb. "Oh, Sara and I always summer in Rock." Yuck. 

Lastly, Priti Patel has trashed "let me be clear" for the world, as whenever I hear it I can only picture her using it to crowbar her talking points in and avoid the question at hand.

 

 

There’s nothing wrong with using read or summer like that per se

But it’s often the sign someone is a massive bellend

Because it’s easier to speak like that than actually have anything to say.

I had a boss who used the term once “Business crazy” for something that was not commercially sensible

 

He was the biggest aunt you can possibly ever imagine.

 

But Business crazy did make me smile.

Belated heh at outflanking Rommel.

I once made the observation in such a meeting (over lunch) that wasn't it mad to think that in another office a few hundred metres away there was another group of mostly white, middle aged men, plotting our downfall just as we plotted theirs, and if an alien came down he might ask why were all bothering and shouldn't we try and do something constructive instead.

It didn't go down well.

Friend of mine at CC who left to join a more specialist commercial team was a PhD in Astrophysics and had worked for four years at NASA before becoming a lawyer. When people said "it's not exactly rocket science" he'd reply "doesn't really matter if it is - I've got that bit covered". 

lol 

I'm guilty of this just "I hope you are well" - no question mark is important - I dont care for a response - it wasnt a question

But the one that grinds my gears is "I hope my email finds you well" just gash on so many levels. 

I hope you are well?  Huhh? Huhh? Isnit? Aren’t I yeah? Right yeah? An’ are you yeah? Are you? Yeah really yeah? Isnit? And dontchajust!? I know i do yeah? I really do. You should you know!? You should. Everyone else does, yeah? Why dont you??? I think it would do you some good. I mean what’s the worst that can happen yeah? I tell you what, yeah, I’m taking you to do that next week. You’ll love it yeah? You will you know.  And anyway, you know what, yeah? We enclose by way of service our client’s Particulars of Claim in the above matter. Please acknowledge receipt, yeah?

 

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