What English expression do you hate the most?

[Alex321]

“Running” instead of “using”, eg. in relation to brand of tyre.
“Cockpit” instead of “handlebar”.
“Head unit” instead of “computer”.

The second and third of those have different meanings to the "instead of" words.

 

[Venod]

It will soon be Chrimbo

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

rebrand

 

[Time Waster]

The commonly held misunderstanding that the Scots language is a variation of English.

I am glad you have just given me permission not to feel guilty for my people being the source of the Scots langauge!! That is a relief!😉

 

[Time Waster]

Holidays instead of Xmas, Chrimbo and Christmas. You don't call Ramadan the holidays or other religious festivals or reliigious dates such things. Not that I am Christian II just think that if you are going to deliberately misname one religious festival then you should do the same for them all or just not misname any. I do not see why christmas offends but Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, Diwalli, Hanukkah, Kumbh Mela, etc. do not.

 

[slowmotion]

Content creator.

 

[Alex321]

Holidays instead of Xmas, Chrimbo and Christmas. You don't call Ramadan the holidays or other religious festivals or reliigious dates such things. Not that I am Christian II just think that if you are going to deliberately misname one religious festival then you should do the same for them all or just not misname any. I do not see why christmas offends but Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, Diwalli, Hanukkah, Kumbh Mela, etc. do not.

Do you not understand what the word "Holiday" means?

It is, literally "Holy Day". It has always been perfectly correct and acceptable to call Christmas, aster etc. "Holidays", and it is nothing to do with not offending people.

Though there is fare to much attention given to not offending people by the naming of things (who would usually not be offended anyhow).

 

[Dogtrousers]

Holidays instead of Xmas, Chrimbo and Christmas. You don't call Ramadan the holidays or other religious festivals or reliigious dates such things. Not that I am Christian II just think that if you are going to deliberately misname one religious festival then you should do the same for them all or just not misname any. I do not see why christmas offends but Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, Diwalli, Hanukkah, Kumbh Mela, etc. do not.

I think you're searching for "offence" where there is none. It's an American thing. I first came across it back when I lived in New York and although I never gave it much thought I always assumed it was just to cover all of Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year*, so it covers all bases. Or at least, several bases, there may be some other religious holidays in December that I don't know about.

It always struck me as a handy shorthand.

Now I could be wrong, after all I lived in NYC which is pretty atypical of the US as whole.

*Or New Years as they say. Which probably annoys some people

 

[raleighnut]

Holidays instead of Xmas, Chrimbo and Christmas. You don't call Ramadan the holidays or other religious festivals or reliigious dates such things. Not that I am Christian II just think that if you are going to deliberately misname one religious festival then you should do the same for them all or just not misname any. I do not see why christmas offends but Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, Diwalli, Hanukkah, Kumbh Mela, etc. do not.

Holidays is a corruption of 'Holy Days' and as I've mentioned in another thread the Christians appropriated Saxon/Pagan festivals for them, Christmas was Yuletide celebrating the passing of the Winter Solstice and Easter was the festival of Eostre celebrating the Spring Equinox and was a fertility festival (hence the Eggs and Bunnies both symbols of fertility)
Midsummer seems to have been ignored but the Autumn Equinox lives on in Harvest Festivals in Churches

 

[Electric_Andy]

Content creator.

There is a guy I went to school with who is unemployed and calls himself a content creator on Facebook. All of his videos are of him ranting about how unfairly he's been treated by the police for being drunk and disorderly. The videos have about 14 views each!

 

[Drago]

Sentences tht begin with, "so, basically..."

 

[Drago]

First time I went to Aberdeen docks to pick up a load. I went into the office and this huge bloke came out. He must have been 7ft tall, with long blonde hair and a massive shaggy beard. He spoke some strange language that sounded a bit like Norwegian. I thought he must be a viking and he was speaking Norse. Turns out he was local and speaking dorric*, never did understand a word he said.

* = Not sure how that's spelt.

That'd be Doric, not one I speak. Some argument over whether that's a dialect or a language. Mainly found at the top end of the mainland. If he came from up there then ethnically he could indeed have Scandinavian heritage as a fair bit of invading and pillaging took place over the years.

There are dozens of dialects and languages, some of which are indeed related to other languages, such as Scots/lowland Scots which has its origins in English and one of the Germanic languages.

I can grunt passable English, fluent in Shetlandic which is a sort of patois, know a few phrases in Scots Gaelic (enough to get me arrested), and passable German. One of my regrets is that I didn't try harder with languages at school, but the main one was Latin and that didn't seem terribly relevant.

Having been to prep and public school, a result of being unruly and a bit much for my mum while my Dad was away working, I speak with a fairly neutral and sometimes slightly posh English tone. When visiting friends in Glasgow or Edinburgh I occasionally get a bit of minor hostility because of my accent, at which point I break into Shetlandic to remind who the real soft southerners are

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

Boomer
Millennial
Gen-Z

 

[Drago]

Socials.

Organised social media is bad enough without someone thinking it appropriate to refer to is as 'socials.'

 

[Moon bunny]

Americanism. I will, however, allow you to hate Americanisms if you go to work on a bicycle and not commute by bike.