Toad in the Hole

1 | By: VS on June 22, 2008 at 08:57 AM

What about athletes who compete at the “world” level?  “World-level athletes” sounds worse than “world-class athletes”, IMO.  “Olympic-caliber” has too many syllables and sounds like marksmanship, anyway.

2 | By: thebewilderness on June 22, 2008 at 02:52 PM

Since there aren’t any world wide athletic competitions it would be a bit tough to have a world class athlete, or a world level one for that matter. On the other hand, it would be accurate to call them “the only parts of the world that matter athletes”.

3 | By: VS on June 23, 2008 at 11:32 AM

Or “the only parts of the world that bother to send athletes”?

4 | By: B. Dagger Lee on June 24, 2008 at 09:43 AM

I’ve always loathed the word “prestigious.”

5 | By: narya on June 24, 2008 at 10:33 AM

Unique.

First off, too many people try to modify it, which makes me insane.  (It’s like “pregnant” or “dead.” You are or you’re not, Billy Crystal in “The Princess Bride” notwithstanding.) Luckily, I have ranted about this so unrelentingly that most of my friends only do it to tweak me.

Second, though, not that many things are unique (or everything is, in the every-sperm-is-sacred kind of way).  Unusual, perhaps, or notable in some way, but not unique.

6 | By: VS on June 24, 2008 at 11:52 AM

I find it annoying when people say “I could care less” when they actually mean “I couldn’t care less”.  It’s right up there with prefacing your remarks with “needless to say”.  IMO, that actually means “needless to listen”.

7 | By: VS on June 27, 2008 at 09:00 AM

I kind of like IIRC.  Email loses so many nuances that it can feel quite blunt.  IMO lets me indicate that I’m not insisting.  IIRC has helped to avoid some unpleasantness, although some people are always ready for a fight, it seems.

OTOH, LOL must die, IMO.  I used to IM a young co-worker of mine.  When she thought something was funny, she would type LOL.  In exasperation, I pointed out that she was on the other side of the cube wall and I could tell that she was not, in fact, LOL.  I eventually broke her of the habit.  She now types HAHA, which I find slightly less objectionable.  Sigh… in most other ways, she actually makes me feel better about 20-something women of today.

On a completely different topic, why do female politicians assume anyone using an initial is male?  Grrrrrr.  This is SO not the world I was promised 30 years ago.

8 | By: Jym on June 29, 2008 at 06:25 PM

=v= A friend of mine became a “top scientist” when the _National_Enquirer_ caught wind of his work, which described how the scilla in tobacco clings to radioactive isotopes, causing nukular cigarettes!

As for “world-class,” Willie Brown used that a lot while doing his Boss Tweed imitation in the backwater burg he was mayor of.  I use it synonymously with “podunk.”

9 | By: Theriomorph on July 24, 2008 at 06:57 AM

<i>“needless to say”.  IMO, that actually means “needless to listen”.</i>

Love it.

My recent peeve: “At the end of the day...” Seems to be endemic in military circles, and I recently heard someone use this to preface so many sentences in a three minute news segment on NPR it filled me with longing for a nice short verbal tic like “um” or “uh” or even “like.”

10 | By: VS on July 24, 2008 at 09:11 AM

He may be a top scientist, but his personal life is none of my business.  Oh, sorry, you meant he works with dreidels?

Regarding verbal tics, I had a boss years ago who used “I don’t know” said with deep regret and a headshake as filler.  She once said “I know, I know! I don’t know.” Of course, she drank a lot.

11 | By: Ron Sullivan on July 26, 2008 at 08:37 PM

“I know, I know! But you know? You never know.”
—St. Stupid’s Day litany response

“I mean, you know what I mean, you know?”
—overheard by Joe, somewhere in SF IIRC

T’morph, I think “at the end of the day” is popular among pro sportsfan types too. No surprise that there’s overlap, I guess.

12 | By: VS on July 27, 2008 at 11:22 AM

Well, wherever you go, there you are.

13 | By: Motorcycle Fairings on August 28, 2008 at 01:25 AM

I agree with all these comments, people use inappropriate words to their own disadvantage.