Poll: What Internet slang are you most annoyed by?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5396702

by gnosis • 13 years ago

12 37 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

bhauer2• 13 years ago

The slang (or is it a meme?) that I feel has totally run its course is "Said nobody, ever" and its many variants.

We get it, you are very clever for saying something positive and then inverting it into snark. Bravo.

sli• 13 years ago

"Said nobody, ever" is simply the new version of the mid-90s' use of "not."

tokenadult• 13 years ago

Emphasize the positive. Upvote the comments that are thoughtful and based on reliable sources, and don't worry so much about habits of written expression (which, for many people here, include using English as a second language).

josephjrobison• 13 years ago

Overused words of 2012/2013:

Awesome - "We believe in building awesome products that make your life better."

Passionate - "We are passionate about bringing 3D advertising to the web."

Obsessed - "I am obsessed with brunch."

I'm not dissing excited people, just wishing more people would use more creative words.

general_failure2• 13 years ago

everyone's favorite - synergy

darkf• 13 years ago

Synergy of the Cloud, man.

jwpeddle• 13 years ago

The only thing that drives me irrationally bonkers is the increasing use of "loosing" instead of "losing", even here on HN (https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=loosing). Mostly because I cannot comprehend how anyone can not know how to spell "losing". However, this isn't slang.

roberto• 13 years ago

You cannot comprehend? Goose. Rose. I can see how writing "loose" instead of "lose" happens, especially for non-native speakers.

RougeFemme• 13 years ago

Even if you are a native speaker, typos happen.

cmoscoso• 13 years ago

This.

davidw• 13 years ago

Oh how I loathe thee, "this.", let me count the ways...

mrintegrity• 13 years ago

This. i am so glad it is winning. chances that this poll help its speedy demise? none. at least i finally get to use it without feeling slughtly ill

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

"epic" - this. The use of the word epic makes me want to loose my mind. lol. "This burrito is so epic it should've been in Beowulf," said nobody ever. tl;dr stop using that word!

Besides—ahem—epic overuse of the word 'epic,' my most loathed turn of phrase is 'The X that is Y'. For example, "the failure that is Microsoft". Stop saying this, nerds! You're not being clever!

bhauer2• 13 years ago

Nicely done, sir.

AndrewDucker• 13 years ago

On a similar note:

http://www.pvponline.com/comic/2012/10/01/watered-down

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

I'm now required to respond by saying "I see what you did there."

general_failure2• 13 years ago

"broken"

Ao7bei3s2• 13 years ago

Could be worse: "borken"

jscarantino• 13 years ago

MOOC

haydenj0nes• 13 years ago

"relevant xkcd" (link to xkcd comic we have all read before)

DanBC• 13 years ago

On HN I try to avoid contractions[1] and initialisms. I know that many people reading do not have have English as a first language.

[1] Apart from the very common, such as "don't" or "can't" etc.

calciphus3• 13 years ago

Hack

calciphus3• 13 years ago

To be fair, I love and adore hacker culture. However "hack" and "hacker" have already become so inundated with misuse as to be nearly meaningless. "Growth hacker" "hack the <blank> industry" recruitment letters, etc.

farinasa• 13 years ago

Hack is often used in the sense: Well it wasn't intended to work that way, but it does, it's a workaround, or "hack".

Ao7bei3s2• 13 years ago

Yes, but that's probably not what calciphus meant: the problem is that now apparently anyone doing a startup creating some random web application (using their tools pretty much exactly as intended) or whatever and making (or dreaming of making, anyway) lots of money qualifies as a "hacker". So sad that it's been commercialized like this.

Just look at "Hacker" News. Thats not hacker news, that's YC marketing.

code177• 13 years ago

YOLO.

calciphus3• 13 years ago

That's an easy one to fix as adults. We just start using it badly.

"Don't text and drive. YOLO."

starnixgod• 13 years ago

YOLO is Carpe Diem for stupid people.

hollerith2• 13 years ago

I know these are not not technically slang, but

"At the end of the day, . . ." and

"I see what you did there."

irickt• 13 years ago

"performant" Performs well how exactly? I've gotten over the fact that "it's not a word". This is how new (useless) words enter the lexicon.

badkangaroo• 13 years ago

yolo

pktm• 13 years ago

"Meta," as an adjective and not, say, a prefix.

Bad: "That show is so meta."

Good: "Let's look at the metadata to make sure our tables are really well-structured."

subsection1h• 13 years ago

It's not slang, but I'm bothered when people use the words "setup" and "login" as verbs while using the phrases "setting up" and "logging in". If you're going to use "setup" and "login" as verbs, please use the words "setupping" and "loginning". I especially like "loginning".

hollerith2• 13 years ago

The verbs are "set up" and "log in". "Setup" and "login" would be nouns, as in, "Can I see your setup?" and, "What is your login?"

Since you prefer "loginning" to "logging in", do you also prefer "beatupping him" to "beating him up" and "dropoutting" to "dropping out"?

bakersma• 13 years ago

When people refer to their email address as an "addy". Drives me crazy. Why do they do it ????

daGrevis• 13 years ago

U mad, bro?

_mhp_• 13 years ago

$location: I am in you.

Poll: What Internet slang are you most annoyed by?

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