Friday, November 7, 2008

Really..? The whole team?

Coming to a Late Show with David Letterman near you, Oxford University researchers have compiled a top-10 list of irritating phrases...

The phrases appear in a book called Damp Squid, named after the mistake of confusing a squid with a squib, a type of firework.

The researchers who compiled the list monitor the use of phrases in a database called the Oxford University Corpus, which comprises books, papers, magazines, broadcast, the internet and other sources.

The database alerts them to new words and phrases and can tell them which expressions are disappearing. It also shows how words are being misused.
As well as the above expressions, the book's author Jeremy Butterfield says that many annoyingly over-used expressions actually began as office lingo, such as 24/7 and "synergy".


The list:

1 - At the end of the day

2 - Fairly unique

3 - I personally

4 - At this moment in time

5 - With all due respect

6 - Absolutely

7 - It's a nightmare

8 - Shouldn't of

9 - 24/7

10 - It's not rocket science


Can we add “thrown under the bus” and “in the tank” which have been beat unmercifully into the ground in this past election cycle and which we vow to never use again as we may have been guilty of aiding and abetting.

Our all-time favorite/irritating, though, is sports announcer guy stating: “He has literally carried this team on his back” Blood-boiling irritating.

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