The Blacklist

People say silly stuff. They usually say it a lot. I spend too much time thinking about what people are saying, so a lot of stuff irritates me. A lot of stuff also stumps me. You will find a sample of the things that I've thought about below. You are permitted to read the following for your own amusement or perhaps education. Or both, but nothing else. Have fun now.

Table of Contents

"How are you?"

People use this more as a greeting and don't really care what the answer is because they expect "fine". I don't like to just mindlessly answer, and answering the reason for my existence is a long, arduous task up to which I don't often feel.

Suggested alternatives:

"Hello."

"Are you well/OK?"

"KYLE!"

"...X amount of dollars..."

Everyone says it, no one thinks about it. No one ever changes the letter either; it's always X. If you assign a value to the variable X (say, 27), it would then read "...27 amount of dollars...". Does that make sense?

Suggested alternatives:

"...a certain amount of money..."

"If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times!" and variants

This doesn't make sense at all. I hope I don't need to explain why because I'm not going to.

Suggested alternatives:

"If I've said it once, I've said it once!"

"If I've said it twice, I've said it twice!"

Something else entirely

"How do you like [object]?"

A friend of mine stumped me with just such a question because I thought about it. I honestly could not answer the question. I thought about saying "I like it", but with his question he implied that I already liked it, so that would be telling him something he apparently already knew.

I didn't know what to do.

I realize this is an extremely common question and the expected answers are either something to the tune of "I like it" or "I don't like it", but I thought about it too hard.

Suggested alternatives:

"Do you like [object]?"

"Photoshop it"

This one really gets my goat. "Photoshop" is not a verb. It is the name of over-priced, resource-intensive, DRM-laced photograph manipulation software by Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Suggested alternatives:

"Modify it"

"Edit it"

Facetious: "Paint Shop Pro it"

"This gets my goat"

I don't have a goat, and, if you're looking at this right now, you probably don't have one either.

Suggested alternatives:

"This annoys me"

"This irritates me"

"Google it"

This one gets my goat about as much as "Photoshop it". "Google" is not a verb. It is an enormous company tied to the CIA one way or another that specializes in Internet search and marketing, and apparently web browsers and telephones now.

Suggested alternatives:

"Search for it"

"Do an Internet search for it"

Facetious: "AltaVista it" (feel dumb now?)

"Gimme a clip!"

No, you don't have a Garand. What you're asking for is a magazine. Get it right.

Suggested alternatives:

"Magazine"

"Mag"

"I could care less"

Please, people, give some thought to what you're saying. Just a little is all I ask. It's really not as difficult as it sounds.

I know you intend to say that you are incapable of caring any less than you already do, but you proceed to say just the opposite.

Suggested alternatives:

"I couldn't care less"

"I don't give a toss"

"I don't care"

"Pick and choose"

Congratulations! You just said the same thing twice in a row.

Suggested alternatives:

"Pick"

"Choose"

"Look and feel"

This isn't inherently bad, but it's usually used in a context that makes it bad. I typically hear it in relation to the graphical user interface of computer software, which does not have a "feel".

Suggested alternatives:

"Look"

"Appearance"

"Color"

This list will be periodically appended. Check back every six years or so.