Pet Peeve #1

[Majestic]

Lake Superior State University in Michigan has released its annual list of words and phrases that it says should be banished in the new year.

The 2016 list also includes the notion of starting a sentence with the word "so,"

The list didn't just include it: the list rightly proclaimed it as public enemy #1, and they couldn't be more correct. Oh please let this horrible, horrible trend die out as soon as possible. Students of English and native speakers alike, a sentence starting with the word "So" is immediately improved just by removing that pointless word. Any sentence that can't stand on its own without this frivolous drum major leading the way, is a sentence that doesn't deserve to see daylight.

Say goodbye to these 13 words and phrases in 2016 - CNN.com

Lake Superior State University :: Banished Words List :: 2016

 

[WonkoTheSane]

So long and farewell all sentences starting with 'so!' Oh, wait...

 

[Majestic]

There's always a cunning linguist in the crowd

 

[Mike Cash]

I couldn't help but be reminded of the days when seemingly every television host in Japan would when coming back from a commercial break always start with というわけで、

Added nothing. Meant nothing.

I have quite a few pet peeves regarding what I am able to glean of current American English usage based on what I hear on podcasts.

1. The vocal fry epidemic.
2. Annoying tooth sucking verbal punctuation
3. Inability to use past perfect tense correctly
4. Overuse of "actually"
5. Misuse of "obviously"
6. "If I would have....I would have...."
7. The annoying intonation pattern used when listing several items, in which the final syllable of each item gets elongated and given an Obama-esque rising intonation
8. The inability to distinguish between "when" and "whenever"
9. "Yeah, no"
10. "No, yeah"
11. I don't even know what to call this one....the inability to correctly distinguish between something like "If I didn't meet your mother you wouldn't be here" and "If I hadn't met your mother you wouldn't be here". The latter construction has been universally replaced by the further. Apparently they don't realize that the past tense is used to indicate an ongoing state or action and as mentioned in #3 they haven't a clue about anything with "had" in it so expecting them to make the distinction here would be asking too much, I suppose.

I could probably think of others if I tried a bit. I really don't think I could ever live in America again if it meant having to be plunged into a sea of people whose English usage quirks I would have to deal with constantly; it would drive me nuts. I probably never would have noticed these things at all had I had more contact with English speakers and been exposed to changes gradually. My problem is that my English got frozen in amber in the ewes early 1980s and the recent easy access to current casual speech via podcasts has at times been rather jarring.

 

[Majestic]

4. Overuse of "actually"
5. Misuse of "obviously"

And the overuse + misuse of "literally". As in; When I saw him I literally died!

6. "If I would have....I would have...."

This tense is in grave danger of becoming represented not by the proper spellings of would have and could have, etc... but by the now frighteningly ubiquitous and ignorant would of, could of, etc...
It makes an annoying word like "bae" seem almost charming by comparison.