Just sayin...
Can vs may.
On my first date with my eventual wife we were talking about music or movies or TV or something I can't quite recall, and she used the word "genre" easily and appropriately. She hooked me right then and there.
I despise "irregardless." It makes me cringe.
Rich
"Failure is Not a Destination"
Coach K on the Dan Patrick Show, December 22, 2016
I have a list of words I like somewhere but I'm having trouble locating it at the moment.
That said, I think my favorite word might be one in Portuguese, saudade. I'm not sure how to precisely explain it without having a conversation, but the Wikipedia article does a decent job. It's a sort of melancholic, nostalgic longing for something that is irrevocably gone. The object of longing could be something physical, like a person, or something more abstract, like a perspective once held while naive to other matters.
As for words I hate, it's rarely the word itself but rather a person's misuse of the word that provokes my frustration. The most egregious examples, IMO, tend to come about through the adoption of words or phrases as thought-terminating cliché by political/social movements. As words lose nuance or come to mean their opposites, language becomes a tool for obfuscation and incitement rather than communication and careful reasoning. I'd give examples, but I try to avoid attracting the ire of the mods.
Word I dislike: disorientated
Words I could go either way on: cleave, nonplussed, inflammable, weathered
Word I like: catawampus
I've grown to dislike the word "vet" as used in political discourse. We used to call that investigating someone's background. Don't really remember when vet became popular to use, fairly recently I think, but it just irritates me.
Tom Mac
I haaaaate the “word” webinar.
Hate: Awesome and amazing. Especially when used by adults.
Not a "word," but I find "YMMV" at the end of posts annoying. Of course outcomes aren't always 100% consistent — no need to hedge. Fortunately, don’t see that much here, but see it a lot on “advice” posts on another site I frequent.
I dislike when people use preventative in place of preventive, but your mileage may vary.
I dislike "utilize." Actually, the word is so-so/blah to me - I just hate the people who use it.
I really like "moreso." I believe most authorities refer to the one-word form as a non-standard spelling, but I intentionally use it. I think it's a fine word, and I hope it gains greater currency. I like to use it to mean "even more" and "rather" moreso than using it to mean "to a greater degree." (Found this: http://grammarist.com/usage/moreso/)
Special rung of hell for those who use "level set" or "deep dive" in a meeting.
I like "fair-to-middlin'" but don't think I've ever used it in a way that wasn't at least a little bit jokey or devilish.
Last edited by Reilly; 05-22-2018 at 10:52 PM.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
“ at least”
“ no kiddin’”
“ geeze”
“ etc,”
🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪
Hate: WebEx
It's not that I hate certain words but rather how they are used.
Hate: Theory - sooo many people confuse it with hypothesis.
I like a lot of words that will just get censored on here 🙄
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge" -Stephen Hawking
I like using “ostensibly” to the point I think others hate when I use it.