Guestimate, and other words that may annoy you

[CrystalShadow]

Laugh out loud
Whedonverse
Unsk
Any medical term- Gastrectomy WTF is that

So... You object to LOL, but find WTF perfectly ok? ;p

Eh. I dunno what everyone's getting so worked up about here to be honest.

For instance, to guess an answer to something is to make make something up when you don't really know.

To estimate something, meanwhile, actually means to use shorthand and rough approximations to work something out. - But a proper estimate of something still follows obvious rules, and suggests you could work out a proper answer given somewhat more time.

(Eg. You guess when you don't know. You estimate when you do know how to answer something accurately, but the answer is time-consuming to work out.)

A guesstimate then, logically combines the two, in that you are trying to work something out in rough terms, but you don't really have a good idea of how to do so to begin with.

Or whatever. It's not like it matters or anything... >_>

As for things such as LOL, ROFL, BRB... Aside from being short-hand, and thus a consequence of either horrible interfaces (mobile phones suck for entering text), they are also emotional short-hand for things that would be entirely self-evident in a face-to-face conversation due to tone of voice, and body language.

Some linguistic adaptations are obvious in a context where written language is somehow starting to be used as a direct replacement for spoken language...

I mean, how would you express the feeling implied with LOL, using just text, without having to write huge sentences:
("I found your last remark so funny I couldn't control myself and actually started to laugh quite loudly..." - yeah... That'd work in a chat room... >_>)

 

[Vault101]

"thats sad"

WTF? a person is having fun and you think its "sad"????

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Guestimate annoys me, only because it doesn't show any kind of linguistic progression, given that the two words that were butchered to form it mean the same thing... and produce a word that means the same thing...

A guess and an estimate are very much not the same thing. A guess is just pulled out of nowhere, whereas an estimate is what happens when you look at the data and get something close, but not perfect. A guesstimate would be where you split the difference and try to make an estimate without really doing the research.

OT: Not a word per se, but it bugs me when people write "should of" instead of "should have." Just because it sounds like "should of" in spoken English doesn't mean that's actually what it is. There's actually a long list of little errors like that that bug me...

 

[teqrevisited]

Bro & bra. Especially bra. A person is not a piece of women's underwear.
Hench. God that word just makes me want to flatten their faces.

Last of all, "bruv". Used by skinny white chavs who put on ridiculous imitations of Black accents and have conversations not unlike a hurried text message sent from the inside of a very small, dark cupboard. If only there were some kind of disease that only afflicted those who wore tracksuits.

 

[FrostyChick]

Beast, legit, jelly, most other words I see scrolling down Facebook.

But breast is another word for tit... And tit multi-functions as both a wonderful insult and an aesthetically pleasing part of the body.

OT: Nothing really annoys me that much. Apart from really, really bad spelling and some of the more nonsensical of the Americanisms.

 

[captainwalrus]

Any slang word with a "z". Example: shizzle, drizzle, nizzle, etc. Makes you sound really stupid.

But... but... but... What if it's actually drizzling?

OT: Although I do sometimes use the occasional "dude" "Hey" "Yo", most slang words bug the crap out of me. Also, when people say "a whole nother". WHAT THE FUCK IS A "NOTHER"?

It's a tmesis. In this case, it's a combination of 'whole' and 'another', where 'whole' is set between the first and second syllable of 'another' to make it 'a-whole-nother'.

OT: Pants. Just say it like thirty times. It's an awful sounding word.

 

[Slowpool]

Supper
Pop (referring to soda)
Clip
Hum
Wiffle (Whiffle?)
Poodle
Slapdash
Platypus
Shag
Anything from the texting culture

 

[Rawne1980]

I really can't stand "text" talk.

I ignore anyone that attempts to talk to me like that. I don't care if it makes me look ignorant. If they can't be arsed to type a full sentence then I can't be arsed to reply to them.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Awesome.

IT'S SO ANNOYING because it's so commonly used in place of the word "good". Awesome is supposed to mean one of the greatest things, but everyone just slings it around.

 

[zajohnson]

I hate the word "exactly".
Because my first name rhymes with the 2nd syllable of that word, and I turn my head every time I hear it. GAH!
>.<
(I haz cookie for whoever can guess my name)

 

[Stall]

Words like guestimate are annoying, because estimate already means to guess. Please vent, let out the words you think have been a belt sander to the English language.

Estimate and guesstimate are very different. A guesstimate is made a lack of adequate information, while an estimate implies you have some sort of prior information you are basing it on.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Tanorexic...they actually put it in the dictionary but it's wrong on so many levels arggghhh! Most of the modern words piss me off, there are perfectly good words already there but people are too stupid to find and use them.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Synergy and all of its forms. Water fountain when talking about the kind you drink from, I have a bias in local slang though. Blazing, in regards to pot. Potpourri. Moist.

 

[imagremlin]

"Alternative" when used wrong. Alternative is the possibility of choosing between two options. So you never have two alternatives, you have one alternative comprised of two options.

"General Consensus". Consensus is always general. I read somewhere that you should never use that expression unless referring to a military man by that surname.

"Supa" as a substitute of "super" just rubs be the wrong way.