Do you know what drives me cray-cray?

[Isabella]

THAT WORD!!  :cursing: Just plain 'crazy' is fine, thank you very much!  We are not 2 year-olds that can't say it, and it's not even shortened - still has two syllables.  I cringe every time I see it! :toetap05:

 

So, what are your most 'hate-able' words? :bigear:

[Gil]

When I read that title, I actually tried to click away because I hate that word and didn't feel like being bothered. I made a mistake and clicked on your thread and when I saw it, I sighed in relief!

 

I HATE that sort of foolishness, when adults people use "chat speak shorthand" in spoken, verbal language.

 

"Yeah, hold on, be-are-be (BRB)"

"OH-em-jee (OMG)! Look at that!"

 

Gets my goat. I have expressly forbidden the boys from using any of that in spoken conversation. It sounds so stupid in my ears and I can't take it!

[Cinder]

Yes! When I read the title I immediately thought, When people say 'cray-cray'. I'm relieved to see that's where your post went.

 

A few years ago there was a girl at church who always said 'j/k' for just kidding. Annoying. But I tried to overlook it as she was in high school and I think text-speak was common among her peers.

[alisoncooks]

Haha, me too.  And I agree with the previous posters -- I was thinking "Um... that word!"

 

My 8 year old has started "tween" speech.  She insisted that our family was going on "Vacay" to the beach... which I corrected but slightly tolerated.  But I drew the line when I heard her say "cray-cray."  Um... No-no.

[Lizzie in Ma]

As soon as I read the thread title, I thought, THAT WORD, lol.

[JustEm]

 

He he I thought "that word" when reading the title like everyone else. I hate totes, as in totally,even more though!

[momto10blessings]

Totes cray-cray.

 

^^ Let us rid those words from our vocabulary

[Farrar]

Totes for totally.

[Heather in Neverland]

Prolly

Whatevs

Epic

 

Any word that substitutes numbers for letters like:

 

L8ter

4ever (or even better, 4evah)

 

Can you tell I work with teenagers? ;)

[Desert Strawberry]

"conversate" Ugh. I think a lot of people that say it have no idea what word they should really be using.

 

Yes. And orientate. What? I mean, what? I hear and read it so much, I have started doubting if I know the right word.

Literally used figuratively for emphasis. Just no. D jokes about this because it puts us both over the edge.

[Desert Strawberry]

He he I thought "that word" when reading the title like everyone else. I hate totes, as in totally,even more though!

Amazeballs makes me feel dirty. Awesomesauce is dumb. 

Totes, adorbs, etc, I can forgive as the foolishness of youth. Not excusable in an older woman, especially a mom who is trying to be cool. Clinging to youth is not graceful. Draw some boundaries, ladies.

[alisoncooks]

I use "Awesomesauce!" when I'm trying to embarrass my 8-yr old.   :D :D

 

(But I'm afraid it's wormed its way into my normal vocabulary and one day I'll just embarrass myself...)

[Desert Strawberry]

Can you use it in a sample sentence (how people around you are using it)? I don't think I've heard that one, but it does show up as a word in the dictionary.

 

The literally thing really bugs me, too. Sometimes I want to interrupt a story to say something like, "It was literally raining cats and dogs? What kind of dogs?"

"I'm going to give you a few minutes to orientate yourself to your new surroundings." 

 

"I woke up hanging upside down. I needed a moment to get orientated."

 

The word is orient. I orient myself. My orientation is my position in space/ my environment.  I orientate the new students to the campus by offering an orientation. 

 

Even used correctly, I don't like the word. It's awkward.

[LucyStoner]

I am sorta driven cray cray by people dissing slang. I find permutations in language very interesting. Language changes over time and in different places. That said, totes is strange. Cray cray I can live with.

[Jayne J]

Just a personal issue--I hate 'utilize'. It's 'use', people!

And yes, I realize that it is considered an acceptable alternative, but it just grates on my nerves. It sounds like the writer/speaker is trying too hard to sound knowledgeable and competent. Like Resume-Speak. Why use three syllables instead of one to say the same thing?

[Susan in TN]

Must go watch that Sprint commercial again.  "Totes Adorbes"

[Tanaqui]

The literally thing really bugs me, too. Sometimes I want to interrupt a story to say something like, "It was literally raining cats and dogs? What kind of dogs?"

 

It really makes me explode. It truly is the worst thing ever! It is very nauseating.

 

...

 

Ah, I feel dirty just having typed that! If the use of the word literally as an intensifier is good enough for Alexander Pope, I'm certainly not going to argue! Besides, if I did that I'd be fighting the tide - the word has been used that way since the very beginning. (Well, since it first shed its literal usage of "relating to letters". And that is the only peeve I will entertain on the word. If you want to stick to *that* meaning, more power to you!)

[JumpyTheFrog]

Gifting - I see many people using this here on the forum.

Cray-cray

Vacay

Epic

Va-jay-jay

Tar-jay (for "Target")

Utilize

Anything that would be in Weird Al's new song about corporate-speak

[trulycrabby]

In one of my yoga dvds, the instructor says "roll your torso up, vertebrae by vertebrae..." :ack2:

 

I did think that "cray cray" was going to be the point of the thread because thankfully, it's justvnot part of the WTM vernacular. Although, it would be fun to see SWB slip it into one of her blog or facebook posts. :)

[Desert Strawberry]

I got into an irritating Facebook conversation because I posted "It's not the Fourth of July until someone sets themselves on fire."  I meant it literally, as I had just had my hand engulfed in flames. It was quite frightening, though I wasn't injured, just a bit singed. We have one such incident each year. I was beginning to question the wisdom of this particular celebration.

I got into this whole thing over whether I had literally set myself on fire, or "literally" set myself on fire. Grrrr. The word has a meaning. Can we please just use it?

[JustEm]

Amazeballs makes me feel dirty. Awesomesauce is dumb.

Totes, adorbs, etc, I can forgive as the foolishness of youth. Not excusable in an older woman, especially a mom who is trying to be cool. Clinging to youth is not graceful. Draw some boundaries, ladies.

I cannot forgive those words for anyone. They make people sound obnoxious and unintelligent. I correct my nieces and nephew when I hear it come out of their mouths. I will outright make fun of my 26 and 24 year old cousins who say there things. They just think I'm not cool at the age of 28 but I simply point out you don't need to talk like an idiot to be cool. Not that I really care about being cool. I don't even know what being cool means.

[Tanaqui]

I got into an irritating Facebook conversation because I posted "It's not the Fourth of July until someone sets themselves on fire."  I meant it literally, as I had just had my hand engulfed in flames. It was quite frightening, though I wasn't injured, just a bit singed. We have one such incident each year. I was beginning to question the wisdom of this particular celebration.

I got into this whole thing over whether I had literally set myself on fire, or "literally" set myself on fire. Grrrr. The word has a meaning. Can we please just use it?

People who use the word "literally" as an intensifier ARE using the meaning of the word. It's a perfectly valid meaning, one that has been in existence for hundreds of years. Look it up! Unless you're opposed to all language change, in which case, again, you should only be using the word "literal" to mean "relating to letters". But if that's the case, Mark Twain (among others) would like to have a word with you.

 

[JustEm]

I got into an irritating Facebook conversation because I posted "It's not the Fourth of July until someone sets themselves on fire." I meant it literally, as I had just had my hand engulfed in flames. It was quite frightening, though I wasn't injured, just a bit singed. We have one such incident each year. I was beginning to question the wisdom of this particular celebration.

I got into this whole thing over whether I had literally set myself on fire, or "literally" set myself on fire. Grrrr. The word has a meaning. Can we please just use it?

Some people are literally incapable of using it properly 😀

[dakarimom5]

Amazeballs makes me feel dirty. Awesomesauce is dumb.

Totes, adorbs, etc, I can forgive as the foolishness of youth. Not excusable in an older woman, especially a mom who is trying to be cool. Clinging to youth is not graceful. Draw some boundaries, ladies.

 

I agree with everything you said!!

[Mom2pandc]

I hate cray cray too.

 

On a side note, we now have a joke in our house about a new word my son inadvertently made up.

He said to me when I was picking on him playfully "that's child abusement!"

Ummm. Abuse maybe... But abusement? More like it was for my amusement :)

[Desert Strawberry]

People who use the word "literally" as an intensifier ARE using the meaning of the word. It's a perfectly valid meaning, one that has been in existence for hundreds of years. Look it up! Unless you're opposed to all language change, in which case, again, you should only be using the word "literal" to mean "relating to letters". But if that's the case, Mark Twain (among others) would like to have a word with you.

Ok. But the conversational use of the word means "by the letter" or exactly as stated. Is there another word in conversational use that means the same? There are many other intensifiers that do not have alternative, opposite meanings. Can't we have ONE word that holds this meaning?

I don't care which word we choose. I just want one word that means, "yes, really. No, I am not exaggerating. This is honestly and truthfully what happened."

[Catwoman]

I can tolerate children and teenagers using slang because we all did it and our parents probably cringed, too, but when I hear a 45yo woman saying that something is "cray-cray" or that she saw a "gorgois" shade of lipgloss (pronounced gor-jwa, as another way of saying "gorgeous,") I think she sounds like either a complete moron or like someone who is desperately trying to recapture her teenage years.

 

It's not attractive.

 

I am relieved that my ds thinks terms like cray-cray and adorbs are idiotic.

[Catwoman]

Amazeballs makes me feel dirty. Awesomesauce is dumb.

Totes, adorbs, etc, I can forgive as the foolishness of youth. Not excusable in an older woman, especially a mom who is trying to be cool. Clinging to youth is not graceful. Draw some boundaries, ladies.

:iagree:

 

When I was a teenager, I had a friend whose mom was trying to be the cool mom by using lots of slang. She thought she was coming across as young and current, but mostly we all just rolled our eyes because she was trying so hard and it wasn't working. She was a nice woman, but she definitely wasn't viewed as the cool mom. Mostly, we found it sort of embarrassing to be around her, because she was quite showy about it in public. I felt sorry for her dd. In retrospect, it must have been hard for her, knowing other kids were laughing at her mom, not with her.

[NicAnn]

What if you just talk like a total surfer? I use very casual language with friends. Dude, man, totally, wicked, sick, etc.

 

Oh gosh, I'm *that* mom, aren't I??

[Tanaqui]

Ok. But the conversational use of the word means "by the letter" or exactly as stated. Is there another word in conversational use that means the same? There are many other intensifiers that do not have alternative, opposite meanings.

 

Do you object to people using "really" as an intensifier? Or "honestly" or "truly" or "very"? Or "absolutely", "positively", "totally"? All those words have followed the exact same trajectory, but for whatever reason the only one people object to is literally. And that really, really sticks in my craw. (But not, you know, in *reality* really.)

 

To be honest, the only intensifiers I can think of that do NOT have a meaning asserting veracity are slang terms - mad, hella, wicked. I'm not going to switch to using just those. If you can think of any, I'd be glad to hear them, because if they exist I must be suffering from terminal brain fart right now.

 

Even if there are such words, that doesn't change my stance. I'm not arguing with Mark Twain. I'm just not. Nor am I arguing with F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, or any of the myriad others who have used the word in this sense. I mean, are we really going to say that Jane Austen doesn't use English properly? Or Thoreau doesn't, perhaps?

 

 

 

[Just Kate]

I wonder what my mom thought when I used to say "Cool Beans"?

 

I agree with some of the PPs...these words sound fine when you're young, but I'm not going to go around saying cray-cray (although, I will admit that now that it's kinda stuck in my head...GREAT!).

[Joker]

We use almost all of these words in our house. It's meant to be funny here and we have a good time with it. My dds think YOLO is especially ridiculous and use it often with us. We don't use them in conversation with people outside of our house, though. That said, I'm sure someone has probably overheard us using them with one another while out and maybe they thought we were cray-cray for using them. :) It's not something I'm going to worry about.

[DawnM]

I use it with my teens just to irritate them. In fact, I speak "teen" just to irritate them.  They don't use teen speak other than an occasional form of the word epic.

 

I sing too.  Makes them cray-cray!  :lol:

 

Dawn

[Elfknitter.#]

Along with others already mentioned, my nails on the chalkboard is the word "delish".

[JumpyTheFrog]

Threads like this make me feel bad for non-native speakers. Do other languages have so much slang?

[Clear Creek]

Oh my glob, it drives me totes cray-cray, 4realz.

[kewb]

OMG! U guyz are totes cray cray 4 not being down with this kind of talk.  

ttyl8r.

[Tammi K]

Saw the title and immediately thought...."People who use the word cray-cray." 

 

I think it's right up there with 'Yummers 'or 'nummy'.    

[Tammi K]

People who use the word "literally" as an intensifier ARE using the meaning of the word. It's a perfectly valid meaning, one that has been in existence for hundreds of years. Look it up! Unless you're opposed to all language change, in which case, again, you should only be using the word "literal" to mean "relating to letters". But if that's the case, Mark Twain (among others) would like to have a word with you.

 

 

Some people are literally incapable of using it properly 😀

 

I was driving my daughter to a friend's house. I had never been there before so I was asking directions:

 

Me: So, where do I turn?

Her: Right behind the church. Literally, right behind the church.

Me: (Approaching church) : At this right?

Her: No, not this one.

Me: (Approaching NEXT right): Here?

Her: No, next one

Me (Not we are now three streets past the church!): I thought you said LITERALLY right behind the church!

Her: (Chuckling at my exasperation): Mom, I meant 'literally' figuratively!

[swellmomma]

Amazeballs makes me feel dirty. Awesomesauce is dumb. 

Totes, adorbs, etc, I can forgive as the foolishness of youth. Not excusable in an older woman, especially a mom who is trying to be cool. Clinging to youth is not graceful. Draw some boundaries, ladies.

This reminds me of my mom and her best friend thinking they were so cool talking like the young folk (this was maybe 3 years ago, so both into their 50s) and saying "true dat mofo" but they didn't know what they were saying at all.  They just thought they were with it. haha It wasn't until friend's daughter (20something year old) and told her mom what the mofo stood for lol She called my mom up completely scandalized that what they had been saying meant THAT.  Yeah they no longer try to talk like the younger generations lol  

[AndyJoy]

Sammich from the mouth of a 40-year-old makes me literally :) shudder. When I see her food photos on FB I never read the text if bread is involved!

[swellmomma]

I use it with my teens just to irritate them. In fact, I speak "teen" just to irritate them.  They don't use teen speak other than an occasional form of the word epic.

 

I sing too.  Makes them cray-cray!  :lol:

 

Dawn

This I do sometimes lol I also do it in a valley girl accent which they don't get but makes them totes cray cray when I do it :lol: ...yeah sometimes the best part of being a mom is having the ability to know exactly how much and when to embarrass the little cretins lol 

[medawyn]

Saw the title and immediately thought...."People who use the word cray-cray." 

 

I think it's right up there with 'Yummers 'or 'nummy'.    

 

 

My MIL uses "nummy" with her grandkids, every.single.time they take a bite.  DS is only 17 months, and I'm sure he's giving her dirty looks.  The 8 yo just rolls her eyes at Nana.

[Farrar]

Awesome sauce makes me think of Andy and April on Parks and Recreation.  And therefore it's fine by me.

[Annie Laurie]

Awesome sauce makes me think of Andy and April on Parks and Recreation.  And therefore it's fine by me.

 

The conversation on this thread about the word literally also makes me think of Rob Lowe's character on Parks and Rec, since he says says it about everything, and pronounces it "litrally". He's not as much fun as Andy and April are though.

[kewb]

Awesome sauce puts my mind right in the gutter.  

[Laura in CA]

I have literally (heehee) never seen or heard of 'cray-cray' until now, but I can guess what it means. :) I guess I'm lucky!

 

 

Yes. And orientate. What? I mean, what? I hear and read it so much, I have started doubting if I know the right word.

Literally used figuratively for emphasis. Just no. D jokes about this because it puts us both over the edge.

 

'Commentate' (another back-formation) also drives me crazy. There are others but I can't think of them right now.

 

 

I don't diss all slang. If I did, I surely wouldn't say "dude." A former co-worker acted all offended by the term citing the definition about a pimple or something on an animal's butt.

 

'Diss' used to really irk me, but ... now I find myself using it. It's short and you hear it all the time now, and I've forgotten what we used to use before 'diss' ....

 

In one of my yoga dvds, the instructor says "roll your torso up, vertebrae by vertebrae..." :ack2:
 

 

I think I have this DVD ... :glare:

 

[Sherry in OH]

Just a personal issue--I hate 'utilize'. It's 'use', people!

And yes, I realize that it is considered an acceptable alternative, but it just grates on my nerves. It sounds like the writer/speaker is trying too hard to sound knowledgeable and competent. Like Resume-Speak. Why use three syllables instead of one to say the same thing?

 

When did utilize become an acceptable alternative for use?  I was taught that utilize meant to use in a manner other than that which is customary.   My high school English teacher drilled into us, "When in doubt, use USE."

[Katy]

Ha.  We've been watching so many teen movies around here lately even I've been using cray-cray and adorbs.  I pretty much gave up six months after they added cray cray to the Oxford Dictionary.

 

ETA: I really hate it when TV news reporters can't pronounce Qatar or nuclear though.  And I was SO relieved when Ahmadinejad stopped being the president of Iran so I wouldn't have to listen to people butcher his name as often.  Seriously, if it's your ONLY JOB to be a political commentator, take the two minutes to learn to pronounce each word properly!  <rant over>.

[Jayne J]

I merely meant that enough people use the word interchangeably that most people aren't bothered/don't notice--it has become common usage. I agree with your English teacher!

 

 

ETA--my quote didn't work for some reason--Sherry in OH, this is in response to your post! :)