Unfortunately, "criticism" has recently come to be understood as "unfavourable criticism". If you intend to mean "favourable or neutral criticism" you are forced to say "critique".
WARNING - Pet Hate Alert! How about 'guys'? What a ridiculous, asinine word. 'You guys' - what's wrong with just 'you'? 'You' can be singular as well as plural, so what's the issue - why add unnecessary American-ised verbiage? 'Some guy' - what's wrong with 'someone', or 'bloke', 'chap', 'man', 'herbert', 'arsehole', 'geezer', or any of the many other descriptors we have in our wonderfully rich UK English language?
I hate that in cafe's when the waitress refers to us as guys,.... Just want to punch them in the face!...
'for sure' which has replaced 'for certain', or 'certainly'....or when it's dropped into a sentence with it meaningless superfluousness ...example: "I don't know for sure if you guys want to critique this, but it will impact all of us for sure".
From tonight's television - and one that has annoyed me for a while - people who cannot pronounce the word "nuclear". It's really not that difficult: it sounds like "new-clear", not "noo-killer". George W Bush had an excuse, he was an idiot, but there is no excuse for anyone else to mispronounce the word.
Wagamamas staff insist on calling people 'guys'. My poor family have cringed on occasion as I launch into a tirade asking for some bloody respect if they want to see a tip.
or new-que-lah..that's a nice little variation on the theme of sheer bloody annoyance... a new-que-lah explosion can be quite spectacklear.... here's one.....lickle, instead of little!!! fkn hate that one.. Get yourself down to a thpeech thawapist mate...it's idleness...people who say lickle never seem to struggle with any other word...
I'm not bothered much about these examples, but I cringe when I hear people say "for sure" when they mean "yes". If you want to say "sure" for "yes", that's OK, but it's not "for sure". I'm fairly certain that Casey Stoner is a fan of this locution. I am also pretty sure that this comes from the increase in foreigners who don't really speak English very well. You hear it principally from non-English speakers, but now it's sort of crept in to the current language. Hideous.
Thing is, "guys" is now used even if half the people present are girls. It's become a replacement for "people". Managers in my past job were always referring to mixed groups as "guys". The next thing it'll be "Listen up, guys". Trouble is, it's quite hard to think of a good replacement…. "Ladies and gentlemen" perhaps? My art master used to refer to us (all boys) as "gentlemen" when we were about 12, with crushing irony. He also favoured "friend" when he was being highly sarcastic to someone. He was a hoot, actually.
but if you are talking to several girls/women and refer to them as guys, they will invariably chastise you for it...i can see the logic of that UKIP bloke referring to his female co-workers as sluts...it saves all of the confusion.
ok..here's a good one... Not an actual word, but an inflection..you know what im talking about...that thing we've inherited from (i think) Australia...where everything becomes a question?...it's supposed to sound cute i think?, or intelligent?...but it's not?....it's nauseatingly infuriating?....all the sentences rise in pitch? towards the end? in a childish manner? as if to confirm the most superficial detail? In an effort to make one's meaningless droning have a purpose? When in actual fact it highlights the triviality of the facile remark? Imagine someone calling you like this.. "Hi John?...I'm calling about your wife? Bad news buddy....she's been killed? In a car accident?" Know wot i mean?
+1 on the Aussie thing. I do try so hard to be tolerant despite my inclination towards violence when wound up, but this really gets to me, I noticed my blood pressure rising and heart rate increasing just reading your post.
and the real piss boiling element is that, rather like so many of these annoyances, they are a deliberately acquired affectation....one has purposely decided at some point to indulge themselves to this type of speech, and to try and impress the poor listener with how up to the minute and modern, and in the moment they are.. the implication being of course that: "I'm so fkn 'with it', that i'm talking with this ridiculous affectation without the slightest outward hint of self conciousness, although im am internally monitoring your response to see if i've either impressed, been accepted by, or rejected by your behaviour, this in turn will help me form an opinion of you, how 'cool' you are, and whether i am now perceived by you as having the higher status to which i aspire, (and have no other means of achieving said high status as i have no personal skills)".. People that do this, come across as try hard fekktards...
Here's another body slam of pretentiousness... The Afro Caribbean..."ask", deliberately pronounced "arks"....that fkn gets my goat.... "I'm going to arks him later"...."Did you arks whether it's okay?" "Did Noah arks if he could build two arks?" "How does an aardvark arks another aadvark a question?" A mate of mine always used to say 'arks', but every now and again, the mask would slip and she'd say "ask", which instantly met with my baying dissent... By the way..thats the British 'Caribbean', not the American "Caribeeyan"...
Whilst i'm punching the shit out of this keyboard..here's another reason to the hate the idiotic... Arctic for Artic, Artic for Arctic..... "He was the first explorer to conquer (or concur if you really want steam in the toilet pan) the Artic" "He drove an 18 wheeled arctic all the way to the artic"..... "Hey, i saw the Artic Monkeys last night".... "Were they any good?".. "No, of course not.... They're shit".
