"Proactive", of course. I prefer "preemptive"; it means what proactive is supposed to mean, I think, and feels more descriptively accurate. As Grammar Girl would point out, "proactive" doesn't fill any vacuum in the English language; it is entirely superfluous. It is the coccyx of popular jargon.

There are few words I hate. However I hate, I hate, I hate misuse of the word literally.

"After that bee sting my head was literally the size of a watermelon" Really?! A watermelon? And you didn't die?

Bugs me every time.

Yesterday's speech by Biden was chock full of literally but the majority of the time it was proper form.

Oh and I have a strong dislike of the word Vulva. We use it when we're talking about girlie bits but I hate saying it. It's the "Vul" part in the back of the throat that reminds me of vomiting.

Apparently most woman in the world hate the sound of the word "moist"

You just think the coccyx is superfluous until you break it.

This isn't even a word. but I hate, hate, hate it - telephonically. That word is requisite Army jargon. My husband would ask me to help edit a speech or press release, and I would HAVE to leave that godforsaken abuse of perfectly innocent letters.

There are more words I hate, but my brain is fried.

I'm sure our grammar geeks will be on this thread, so I'll just throw this out there - two men were recently fined and banned from all national parks after defacing a historical sign at a national park by correcting the spelling and grammar.

slacks

Mamawho, that's terrible, anyone who corrects public spelling should be applauded.

i love word-wise graffiti. There are road signs here that are posted where two lanes merge into one, that read "FORM ONE LANE", and a bunch of smart-arses with a spray can stick a P and a T on the bottom line, so it reads "FORM ONE PLANET". I love it. It's one of my favourite things ever. When i was a teenager some friends and I stole an L from the big sign for the Harcourt Pool. You could see it from the highway even. Harcourt Municipal Poo. We laughed so hard at that.

Words I hate... let's start with "conversate." It isn't even a fucking word. They mean to say "converse." But can't, evidently. Likewise "orientated." Just say oriented, people. "Basically" should be a pay-per-use word too, it's so overly abused. I have many words i hate. Not usually for the word itself, but for the overuse or misuse of it.

I type a lot of transcripts of interviews and things, have done for years, for the police and for PhD students and things, i've heard some shocking stuff. It's amazing how painfully repetitive most people are, when you hear them on tape. It changes things, when you can't see their actions and so on, it's just their raw voice rambling and dribbling shit. I think it says a lot about the person talking, when you realise which words are the ones repeated ad nauseum. The last one, i remember, said "initially," every fucking sentence. Some people start every sentence with "Look," others finish all sentences with "you know?" FAR TOO MANY people finish with "blah blah blah... so, yeah." Talk about wasting paper. :(

Anyone here seen "Noises Off," with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve and co.? That blonde guy with glasses, Gary, who always talks without actually saying anything - he is EXACTLY like how most interviewees actually speak. "I just wanted, i mean, I never really - and i think i speak for everyone, but i mean, first we were all, you know, and now we're all, i don't know, and so well, here we all are, and it's just all so... well isn't it?"

MttM - I am guilty of literally. I know what it means, I know how to use it correctly, but I can't help myself. I actually use sucks so frequently that I had to write myself a sticky when I was working in the call center to not use it, as they'd actually count off for it when they QAed my calls. It was hard. I could control myself with Fuck, but sucks was almost too much for me.

Hm. I'm not big on irregardless. I don't care if MW says it's a word. It's not.

I didn't used to dislike "plethora" or "myriad," but then I started to notice people interjecting them clumsily in an effort to sound smart, as in, "My, but I've drunk a plethora of beers!"

I hear you, MttM--I've heard many a screed (which is a word that I love) about misuse of the word "literally." Is it truly the one word in the language that you can't use figuratively?

When I saw the header for the Grand Canyon Grammar Vandals story, I instantly sided with them, but after I read the story...

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/southwest/view.bg?articleid=1114540

...well, correcting a sign from the thirties is a bit like "fixing" the Tower at Pisa.

I had a professor whose verbal tick was the pointless "do." "Do complete your work on time." "Do email me if you have any questions." That really, really, really grated on me after awhile. Other than that no words are coming to mind in this instant, though I know I have some. I really hate misused quotation marks, but that's not a word.

The people I work with use "&" instead of "and" -- in formal documents. Lazy?

Really annoyed by the use of "myself" when people mean "I" or "me." Everyone skipped the discussion in English class about reflexive pronouns. Argh!

Oh, and "methodology" when "method" is correct.

Ellie - I've never said that irregardless is a word!
I hate it too.

T-Rex - my husband is ALWAYS misusing his reflexive pronouns. I think, once again, it's a terrible military-speak habit. Drives me batty. He doesn't misuse the reflexive in writing, so there's that.

CPF:

you can use literally, figuratively. when describing HOW someone took your words.

mamawho - Gah! No, I meant Miriam-Webster! That MW, not you! Sorry!

I can't think of any words at this moment that drive me crazy, but for a few years when my brother was in high school and college he would insist on using big words in an effort to sound smarter. But he would use them wrong. And often it would be in a way that, yes, technically, the word means what you said. But he would put it in the wrong context and then act all smug about using smart words. Drove me batty.

And, not exactly a word, and I know I've said this before, but the grammar thing that raises my blood pressure is redundant acronyms.

ATM machine. PIN number. VIN number. NASA administration. Scuba apparatus. SIP plan.

I don't really know why, but these make me absolutely crazy.

I hate whinge. Really, really hate it. I don't know why, but for some reason that g just grates on my nerves. It doesn't belong there.

Otherwise, my language pet peeves tend to revolve around mispronunciations of easy words. Like "nucular". Seriously, how difficult is it to say nuclear correctly. I especially hate it when educated people who should know better do that--for instance, the damn president of the United States.

My own personal verbal tick is that I tend to call everyone dear, sweetie, hon, or some other endearment. I have to concentrated really hard on what I say to not do it during class (because it's pretty inappropriate and unprofessional to call a student hon or dear), but I know that otherwise I just do it way too much. And I know that it drives other people crazy.

CPF...Myriad always makes me think of the movie HEATHERS. "I was happy to see that Heather used the word 'myriad' in her suicide note."

There are phrases that I hate...Thinking "out of the box" or if something is "in my wheelhouse." Ugh. I also have an allergic reaction to "shut up"--because those words were forbidden in my house growing up.

As far as words go...I'm not a big fan of people referring to others as their "lover."

DGB - I also hate when people refer to their spouse as their "man" or their "woman" - makes me mental.

Another one is the use of "that" where it should be "who" as in - The person that owns this car.

I'm sure I've made 6 mistakes in typing this though...

PF will start to laugh at the BEGINNING of any familiar commercial that uses "literally" incorrectly because he knows I'll twitch and grumble. I won't even notice the commercial is on until he starts to laugh - ARGGGGHHH!

DGB-that scene was on the tip of my brain!

Julia, I have an ex-girlfriend who used to do what your brother did, although not to sound smarter so much as to just enhance her language. My favorite was her attempt to say something besides "cheap," meaning stingy. The only word that she could find was "niggardly," which, for obvious reasons, she was reluctant to use. So instead, she said "pecuniary," which is a great word, but doesn't mean "cheap."

Also, the phrase "I had an ex-" means to me that either you've reunited or your ex has died. I *have* an ex. I *had* a girlfriend.

I hate the word hilarious. I have hated it since the first moment I heard it. I hate the way it sounds and I hate the way it looks.

Tweak. As in, "Let's get something on paper, then we'll tweak it later."

ick.

Monies.

"Grow" as a transitive verb.

"Impact" as a verb. MAKES ME WANT TO HIT SOMEONE.

That was both a joke and a real sentiment.

You don't want to GROW this company? I worked for that guy.

Any kind of creative-speak jargon. Because I'm around it ALL THE DAMN TIME.

"Ideate." "Iterate." "Scalability." Ad nauseum. I even hate the word "brainstorm" now, and I used to love it in school. Made me imagine a little lightning storm inside my skull...

I also loathe mispronunciations. When it sounds like someone's read the word but never actually heard it used in a sentence. For instance, my boss says lih-NEAR instead of Lih-Nee-Er. Shudder. Drives me batshit.

T-Rex: whenever I imagine it spoken, it is always by that guy.

The word "holistic" is waaaaay overused in my field. Unfortunately, most people put a "w" at the beginning of it, which makes me want to scream so loud (loudly?) that I won't type it up with that spelling here, for fear I will actually wake the dead with my screams upon seeing it. I know it's now in the dictionary both ways, but it bugs the holy hell out of me. Which phrase I'm sure bugs someone here.

And I don't mind the word "moist." It makes me think of cake, and I like cake.

I don't hate "sustainable" yet, but I'm headed that way. I think it gets some questionable overuse, although I admit that I may simply not understand the word.

I hate baby mama/baby daddy. I also dislike juicy.

I had a boss who used to use the word couch all the time: "let's couch it like we're really interested in them so they won't realize we're asking for money." She used it so often that I wanted to scream whenever I heard her say it, both because of the word and the context.

I also have a complete aversion to the word panties. I don't know why, but I hate it. I'll also second not being a fan of slacks. They make me think of brown polyester pants from the seventies.

Kiwi - I actually like baby mama, but I use it sort of sarcastically. I call my husband my baby daddy on occasion, and to me what makes it funny is that yes, he's my baby daddy, but not in the sense that most people mean because we've been married for 10 years and all of my kids are his. I call my "thank you for giving birth to my child" present that I received for all three my "Baby Mama present".

I looooove baby mama/baby daddy. Lauren had a great post about it on Unsprung a long ways back -- there is no other term for those of us who had children together out of wedlock. There's "co-parent," but that's just confusing. I wish I coud use baby daddy in regular conversation with strangers, I really do, because that would shut up the endless stream of questions people feel entitled to ask. They don't realize there's a difference between curiosity and nosiness, and I don't blame them, but damn, I get sick of it.

A husband is not a baby daddy, though of course I love people joking, as laughter makes the baby Jesus happy. Ex-husbands aren't baby daddies, either. Please, universe, let those of us who have to shock everyone with our shocking unweddedness have our own word. Why not. That's what they call expropriating the stigma, and dammit, that's mine to do.

The unholy trio: impact, hopefully, nauseous. And loan. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!)

I hate it when people use impact instead of effect or affect. Sloppy.

Almost no one ever uses hopefully correctly.

Since I read Strunk and White in 10th grade, I've been hung up on the use of nauseous when people mean nauseated. I typically just arch an eyebrow. Like Spock. Only my eyebrows are really blond.

And when people use loan as a verb? Forget it.

I have a copy of the Calvin and Hobbes strip about "verbing" pinned on my cork board at work.

JTC, I'm actually okay with loan being a substitute for lend, though I understand it morphed from a noun to a verb. But it kills me when people use loan as a substitute for borrow.

"I'm going to loan that from my sister."

NO YOU ARE NOT.

Selena: totally agree about panties. It's a really infantilizing word. I mean, men have BOXERS! And BRIEFS! And TRUNKS! And the women, they get "panties." I, personally, wear "underwear." Most of the time.

Selena and muttermutter: Everyone gets underpants. Underpants are the great equalizer.

Unique, when used when another qualifier, makes me a little nuts. Something cannot be the most, very, or quite unique.
It's either unique or it's not.

ooh.. another one... "paradigm"... its kind of a cool word, just really overused

Julia, it simply sounds illiterate to me. Wherefore lend? Why not preserve subtlety and nuance in the language? Why rush in Newspeak?

My former boss used the word cognizant a lot. I came to the conclusion that it was the only synonym he knew for aware and decided that make him sound smarter. However, it only served to make him look like more of a stupid ass.

Borrow

"Hey, can I borrow a battery"? No, because you won't give it back. Once you use it all up, it is garbage.

Hey, Cog, I'll give back borrowed batteries and kleenex if you *want*...

JTC- In all seriousness, what's the correct use of the word hopefully? I've been using it a lot lately. Frankly, as I sit in baby limbo, I'm getting sick of the word hope.

CPF- I had a Spanish teacher (native Iowan) who said superfluous "SUPER- fluous" Drove me nuts. She said it constantly too.

Mama, why was she saying superfluous at all if she was supposed to be teaching Spanish?

I like words that with the prefix "super--" but only when it is emphasized, as in, "I am no mere mortal intendent, I am the SUPERintendent!!"

I had a friend who would say FUNeral. We're off to my grandfather's FUNeral.

He was joking though...I think...

It's a long-standing family joke that I couldn't say funeral until I was 7 or so. I said FOON-er-al. I also said boogeler instead of burglar.

i never want to hear the word "mentality" again.

I hate hate hate the word Bugger. Not because of what it means but because my MIL uses it and doesn't know what it means. I grind my teeth in anger when I hear her call my kids 'little buggers'. She might as well be saying 'little faggots'.

Eventually I asked her if she knew what it meant and that it was really offensive but she still uses it! Grr. The word and my MIL drive me crazy.

Growing up with Tiny Brit (my mom) it was forbidden. The word is up there with Fuck.

Also the phrase "as it were." I had a high school English teacher who used it all the time. It irritated me partly because I didn't really know what it meant (and I couldn't figure it out from the context, which irritated me even more), and partly because it didn't seem to add meaning, emphasis or *anything* to what he was saying.

Finally, I raised my hand and asked what it meant. He fumbled around for a definition but couldn't come up with one and seemed to get mad at me because of it.

But he stopped using it, so I was happy.