Page 776 of 3371 FirstFirst ... 27667672676677477577677777878682687612761776 ... LastLast
Results 15,501 to 15,520 of 67406
  1. #15501
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Back in Vegas... again.
    This is part of a post I just put up on Facebook. Made for a nice surprise to start the evening.

    Wore my Duke > UNC shirt to go grab a burger for dinner. Got a nice compliment on it, all the way out here in SoCal. Turns out the couple is from the Triangle and went to NC St. We had a lovely chat.
    Now if the Giants would just... just... ugh.

  2. #15502
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    The Term 'Iconic' -- Can We Please Stop Using It?

    Chris Jansing on MSNBC just referred to the NJ boardwalk fire's beginning at "an iconic frozen custard stand." Puh-leese!!!

    sagegrouse

  3. #15503
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    Chris Jansing on MSNBC just referred to the NJ boardwalk fire's beginning at "an iconic frozen custard stand." Puh-leese!!!

    sagegrouse
    It is a word without meaning when used by those who do not know what an icon is.

  4. #15504
    Quote Originally Posted by Indoor66 View Post
    It is a word without meaning when used by those who do not know what an icon is.
    Yes. Isn't it ironic? I crack myself up.

    Other words/phrases I'd love to see retired or reduced to being used only for their actual meaning:

    - all in
    - walkoff
    - hella
    - boots on the ground
    - literally
    - at the end of the day
    - epic
    - price point
    - LOL

  5. #15505
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Words I'd like to see retired:

    -- Tar
    -- Heel.

  6. #15506
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Words I'd like to see retired:

    -- Tar
    -- Heel.
    Those two are VERY tired!

  7. #15507
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Also tired - grammar pedantry. Why should we care how people use the word literally?

  8. #15508
    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    Also tired - grammar pedantry. Why should we care how people use the word literally?
    That's a usage issue, not a grammar issue. How's that for pedantry?

    What's the extent to which you're OK with people misusing words? Is "aggravate" for "irritate" OK? What about "ambivalent" for "indifferent"? I gave up on "comprise" for "compose" a long time ago but still have my principals principles.

  9. #15509
    Quote Originally Posted by Indoor66 View Post
    It is a word without meaning when used by those who do not know what an icon is.
    Yes. Geez, a thousand times yes. If there is some sort of petition I can sign to get "iconic" banned from use, I will renounce my right to free speech and sign it. It's a pet peeve for me on par with folks' apparent inability to learn the difference between "your" and "you're".

    Quote Originally Posted by Mal View Post
    Other words/phrases I'd love to see retired or reduced to being used only for their actual meaning:

    - all in
    - walkoff
    - hella
    - boots on the ground
    - literally
    - at the end of the day
    - epic
    - price point
    - LOL
    Also: "It goes without saying that..." - well gee I guess it doesn't, does it?!?

  10. #15510
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    That's a usage issue, not a grammar issue. How's that for pedantry?

    What's the extent to which you're OK with people misusing words? Is "aggravate" for "irritate" OK? What about "ambivalent" for "indifferent"? I gave up on "comprise" for "compose" a long time ago but still have my principals principles.
    Common usage is, by definition, not misuse. Well, unless you're trying to reinforce an artificial status hierarchy.

  11. #15511
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Southern Pines, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Mal View Post
    Yes. Isn't it ironic? I crack myself up.

    Other words/phrases I'd love to see retired or reduced to being used only for their actual meaning:

    - all in
    - walkoff
    - hella
    - boots on the ground
    - literally
    - at the end of the day
    - epic
    - price point
    - LOL
    Oh, the irony of it all. Iconic imparts the state of being an icon on something or someone. Does ironic similarly impart the state of being an iron on something or someone? Maybe it's irony. All in is too general. Is it all in a pool, or in a quandary, or in a tub? Often it is a poker term for an seemingly idiotic strategy that seems to work more often than not.

    Hella isn't in my dictionary, so what is it? Boots on the ground is a military slang term that that seems to have been learned in a boot camp, literally. Boot does seem to have multiple meanings which depend on just where the boots are located, like up your...
    At the end of the day, it begs the question, what is epic pricepoint?

  12. #15512
    Quote Originally Posted by Jarhead View Post
    Hella isn't in my dictionary, so what is it?
    Hella [hell-a] [adj.] The degree to which you must make Gwen Stefani feel good before she will agree to keep dancing.

  13. #15513
    alteran is offline All-American, Honorable Mention
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham-- 2 miles from Cameron, baby!

    Post

    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    Common usage is, by definition, not misuse. Well, unless you're trying to reinforce an artificial status hierarchy.
    I agree that people should not be so harsh on common usage. If you know what they mean, well, isn't that the whole point?

    My biggest irritation with this behavior is from my days as a tech writer. I can't remember how many times some person above me in the food chain harangued me for violating some rule they THINK they learned in Mrs. McGillicutty's class in 3rd grade, despite the fact that they were a programmer, manager, or candlestick maker. I could whip out as many copies of the AP Stylebook or Chicago Manual of Style as I could find, they were d*** sure Mrs. McGillicutty was right.

    It literally drove me insane. (Granted, not a far trip for me.)

  14. #15514
    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    Also tired - grammar pedantry. Why should we care how people use the word literally?
    Because we enjoy language, and words, and appreciate when they're used cleverly or in a novel way or, at bare minimum, logically. So, redundancy and overuse becomes annoying, and we feel a little sense of sorrow when a nice, innocent word like "literally" comes to be commonly used to mean "figuratively" instead. Because it's lazy and/or confusing and reminds us of our basic human coarseness and imperfection, when we'd rather be reminded of our cleverness and creativity.

    Seriously, though, no one here is all that serious about being a pedant (although I'd love to debate at some point whether caring about word meaning and grammar is "reinforcing an artifical hierarchy," or whether any hierarchy can be artificial, or to what degree reinforcing it is necessarily bad). We're just expressing pet peeves, mostly based on overusage. Some phrases become banal and should be put out to pasture. Does it not connote laziness and sheeplike lack of originality that every sports team fanbase now refers to itself as "________ Nation?" It's hackneyed. Likewise, Sage has a legitimate gripe regarding the word "iconic" - it's been applied to so many things/people that it has effectively lost any real meaning beyond "unique" or "old and well-known." Expansion of or shift in meaning is easier to accept, I think, in the evolution of language, than corrosion of meaning is. "Iconic" was a nice, precise word with a very specific connotation which recognized its religious origins. Now it's tired, means nothing, and has lost any connection to its own past. I think that's too bad.

    Similarly, when a word becomes a verbal tic, devoid of actual meaning in a sentence, some of us just get tired of hearing it. Even worse, when common usage evolution of a word occasionally leads to it being used to denote its generally accepted antonym, it's irritating.

  15. #15515
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Greenville, SC
    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    Common usage is, by definition, not misuse. Well, unless you're trying to reinforce an artificial status hierarchy.
    You reminded me of this: Common Knowledge

  16. #15516
    Quote Originally Posted by camion View Post
    You reminded me of this: Common Knowledge
    We all attended the Southern University of Common Knowledge, didn't we?

  17. #15517
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    We all attended the Southern University of Common Knowledge, didn't we?
    You are tempting all of us with that one to see if anyone will dare substitute another location for Southern, aren't you...

    (Check your PM a bit later for an old Soupy Sales story.)
    [redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.

  18. #15518
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Gates House (House H for you old timers)
    Tons of iconoclasm in this thread. Sigh...

    Heretics.

  19. #15519
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Quote Originally Posted by alteran View Post
    I agree that people should not be so harsh on common usage. If you know what they mean, well, isn't that the whole point?
    Please go read 1984.

    Also... sometimes you don't know what they mean! That's why correct usage is so important! For example, when someone tells me that they perused my website, do they mean that they skimmed it over, which is a common way that people misuse the word, or did they actually peruse the thing?!?!
    Last edited by Edouble; 09-13-2013 at 08:21 PM.

  20. #15520
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by Edouble View Post
    Please go read 1984.
    How do you read a number?

    That's like saying "go read Fahrenheit 451" -- you can't read a temperature.

Similar Threads

  1. Duke History (new thread-- posts moved from unrelated thread)
    By jimsumner in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 43
    Last Post: 12-25-2019, 08:15 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •