I think I said that I have roughly a decade of copy editing experience behind me (through high school, college, and three years of professional), and one of the things I've compiled in all these years is an intense dislike of certain words and phrases in the English language.
So here's the list (and if you include these in a story you send me to beta, they will be marked):
1. "Needless to say" -- If it's a phrase you don't need to say, then why are you saying it?
2. "Irregardless" -- This means the same thing as regardless, and isn't a word itself.
3. "Could care less" -- A corruption of the phrase "couldn't care less."
4. "Should of," "could of," "would of" -- I don't see this from writers so much as from non-writers. They write this when they mean "should've," "could've," or "would've."
5. "Due to the fact that" -- a wordy phrase than can easily be replaced by the word "because."
That's pretty much all I can think of right now. What are some words or phrases that bother you?
11 comments:
Great list!
My pet peeve?
Suddenly.
Not because it's an adverb, but it seems that there should be a better way of introducing new, unexpected action than with the word Suddenly.
as well as = and
Great list! Thanks!
Those are good ones. I hate "all of the sudden". :-)
Great list. I hate the use of 'ditto.'
I think I sent you a link to my list :)
Because I said so
I don't care
That's the way it is
Tough
Don't worry, be happy
Why should I?
Oooh, were I dictator, using 'could care less' might be cause for execution.
LOL at Bane.
Great list, I'm sure I could add several but I as usual can't think of them on the spot.
I'm more bothered by mispronunciations. I had a pastor who pronounced galaxy "gay-laxy". And few things bother me more the "nuculer".
Don't get me started on my list of pet peeves. It goes on and on. And a lot of them are on your list.
Cliches Dude. That's all I'll say.
........dhole
I'm with you on "should of" "could of" and "would of" being grounds for immediate decapitation.
The use of "as you know" sends off alarm bells in my head. If I know (or if the character knows) why are you telling me? The only proper use of "as you know" is to be snarky in a complaint letter.
"In any event" also bugs me, probably because it's so widely used. By me. I'm trying to stop, really. In any event, it's an annoying phrase.
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