Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[teamsaint]

Probably been replaced by 'super' being used everywhere as in super-excited, super-thrilled, super-honoured which I have heard of late - I first started hearing it from tennis players in post-match conferences usually from Europeans, but it has started to turn up in the UK too, of late - I find it kind of iritating, though not super-annoying.

“Great”

“ Super”.

[Bryn]

So it’s Still super popular, and often used in emails, I find.

You so and so!

[kernelbogey]

Immersive - as in
Children attend the preview of Van Gogh Alive, an immersive, multi-sensory art experience in Festival Square (Guardian picture caption)
This has become a fashionable adjective

[cloughie]

Probably been replaced by 'super' being used everywhere as in super-excited, super-thrilled, super-honoured which I have heard of late - I first started hearing it from tennis players in post-match conferences usually from Europeans, but it has started to turn up in the UK too, of late - I find it kind of iritating, though not super-annoying.

The mention of ‘super’ takes me back to Reginald Perrin and one of his office colleagues favourite responses.

https://youtu.be/6ajEW9kjufM

[ahinton]

Immersive - as in
Children attend the preview of Van Gogh Alive, an immersive, multi-sensory art experience in Festival Square (Guardian picture caption)
This has become a fashionable adjective

But is mere presumed fashionability necessarily synonymous with the setting of teeth on edge?

[gurnemanz]

Is it my imagination or are interviewees currently increasingly inclined to preface their replies with "That's a great question"? Someone on M Bragg's In Our Time show just used it. Not especially tooth-grinding but it often seems not to be strikingly applicable.

[kernelbogey]

But is mere presumed fashionability necessarily synonymous with the setting of teeth on edge?

I imagine it to be used with little thought, and therefore relatively meaningless; furthermore, immersion is a subjectve experience, unlikely to be capable of being induced.

[kernelbogey]

"That's a great question"

A way of gaining a few more seconds' thinking time.

[Serial_Apologist]

Immersive - as in
Children attend the preview of Van Gogh Alive, an immersive, multi-sensory art experience in Festival Square (Guardian picture caption)
This has become a fashionable adjective

Correctly used, the follow-up should be "Visitors are invited to jump in".

[oddoneout]

Immersive - as in
Children attend the preview of Van Gogh Alive, an immersive, multi-sensory art experience in Festival Square (Guardian picture caption)
This has become a fashionable adjective

Only way to deal with the great unwashed don'tcha know.

[gradus]

The mention of ‘super’ takes me back to Reginald Perrin and one of his office colleagues favourite responses.

https://youtu.be/6ajEW9kjufM

Great to revisit it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Today's programme changes on Channel 5 are being explained by a power outage. What on earth was wrong with "power cut"? - it's much shorter, doesn't take away valuable time. How long before our entire language becomes Americanised?

[oddoneout]

Today's programme changes on Channel 5 are being explained by a power outage. What on earth was wrong with "power cut"? - it's much shorter, doesn't take away valuable time. How long before our entire language becomes Americanised?

The origins go back to the middle of the 19th century, and the American usage to the beginning of the 20th century. My 1972 Chambers dictionary lists all the options, including the electricity one. "Outage" in the sense of loss of supply is accurate and also avoids the suspicion of deliberate interference that "cut" might imply, since the rollout of smart meters has come with increased distrust about the level of control it gives over provision of supply? Then again it could just be another case of using a new/different term just for the sake of it or because someone thought it a good idea.

[french frank]

Today's programme changes on Channel 5 are being explained by a power outage. What on earth was wrong with "power cut"? - it's much shorter, doesn't take away valuable time. How long before our entire language becomes Americanised?

If all it means is that the electricity supply has failed, yes, why not just the usual term: "We had a power cut." I confess to having used the word 'outage' when something but I'm not sure what has caused the forum to be temporarily unavailable. VBulletin Solutions is/are based in California and FutureQuest, our Web Hosting service is, I think, in Florida. So outage and downtime seem to be the terms used most frequently. We perhaps don't have "British English" versions.

[Nick Armstrong]

How long before our entire language becomes Americanised?

I noticed when listening to a recent Sunday Breakfast that Martin Handley said ‘cen-tenn-ary’ - is this not an Americanism, or have I been pronouncing ‘cen-teen-ary’ wrong all these years?