irritating phrases

few days ago i blogged on my observation on some of the mysteries of life. now I’m going to talk about some familiar well-known phrases that people like to use, where, some of them sound quite annoying to me.

i remember sometime back the star paper did a feature on this subject – familiar phrases that are popular but dislike, and the one that comes up top is ‘at the end of the day’. at the end of the day? you know, i never use that before.

ok, let’s see some of the phrases that i used/that i dislike people using:

1. we can’t please everyone. i hate it when people use this on me. this usually comes after e.g. i was saying “if you hold this activity on a wesak day, less of the buddhist people will attend”. a smart alec will say “well, we can’t please everyone. if you hold it on good friday, then less of the christians will come.” hello, don’t i know that, that we can’t please everyone but am i not entitled to my opinion, just voicing out what would happen if the activity were to be carried out on certain date, that’s all.

2. worst come to worst. now this one i love to use it. i do not find many people using it though. since i do quite a lot of planning of activities or writing report, i used it often. it’s sort of like “if plan A fail, we have plan B”. so in using ‘worst come to worst’ i meant “worst come to worst, we use plan B”.

3. like it or not. now this one i don’t quite understand. like it or not? more often than not it is the last part – don’t like it that the speaker mean. so it is kind of redundant, don’t you think so? i mean yes i have to do it no matter i like or don’t like it, but if i like doing it, you don’t have to use that phrase on me already. unless i don’t like doing it, then you use the phrase. so this phrase actually means “you gotta do it even if you don’t like it.”

4. as you like. whenever someone uses this on me, like when after i asked “shall i say something now?” i know s/he actually means “keep your bl**dy mouth shut!” or when i offer to help do something and s/he retort with “as you like”, i know it means s/he is hoping i’ll mind my own business. definitely a phrase that will get me sulking after hearing it.

5. in my humble opinion. (or in short IMHO). wow. referring to yourself as humble? he who is humble will not say he is humble, so says a humble lucia… er… so say lucia i mean. anyway who cares… if you are humble enough, you wouldn’t have offer your opinion. (kurang asam, i know you’ll come in here to say by using IMHO, people are only being polite… well, true in a way but that point can be shot down by me too! ha!)

6. happy now? ah, this is the no. 1 phrase that made me very mad. just an example – i asked someone her/his age and s/he is not willing to tell but keep evading it. however i insist and talked around it, then finally s/he tells me her/his age but add “happy now?”. my retort would always been “well, i would have been happy if you have not asked me that, but now that you asked me that, no, i’m not happy but i’m very unhappy”. ha. i sound very picky eh. well, to me when a person add “happy now?” means s/he is not willing to answer, and she is answering it just to make me happy (satisfied), not because s/he wants to, so what’s the point of answering it in the first place? well, you would have argue that it was me who insisted s/he answer it in the first place, and if s/he didn’t answer it, i would have been unhappy, so to make me happy s/he answered it. yes, right but then does s/he has to rub it in by asking “happy now?” iwould have been perfectly happy is s/he didn’t. oh gosh now i sound so long-winded. better scram now before someone use an irritating phrase on me (specially used on online junkies like me) – get a life, will ya!!