Am I, er, unreasonable to be, er, irritated by, er, this

And all labour Mps!

‘We have been very clear’

Bollocks you are?

Oh thank you thank you Weeping Widow!! I actually went and had my hearing checked because I couldn’t understand half of what is being said on tv! The men mumble, the women whisper - is that supposed to be sultry? Maybe but I can’t hear them haha!

"It`s fine" annoys me! I`ve noticed the return of "Babe" more annoyance!

For some irrational reason I get irked by the overuse of the word 'absolutely'.

Washerwoman, someone told me recently that the word absolutely really got on their nerves. For some reason this sparked something off in me and I must have said it six times in the next half hour. I just couldn't stop myself! I go hot and cold now thinking about that conversation.

Let’s have a grown up conversation???

No sense whatsoever.

I turned around and said? No you didn’t really did you?

And every answer begins with so!!!!!

I turned around and said.....

I've said it before and I repeat it now, so don't get me started on "Don't get me started!"

KateK - you missed a trick there

"‘Literally’ is another one as in “I got such a fright I literally felt my heart stop.” No, you didn’t!!"

Should have said "no, you LITERALLY didn't"

Some interject this um and err so much I lose the thread of what they are talking about

Another one I find distracting is so many presenters and politicians doing the hand clasp.....clasping and unclasping to emphasise a point. I am too busy following all this clasping that I lose the thread here too. Prince Charles is the worst culprit.

Agree with all the literary annoyances mentioned here. I'll add one - the use of " clearly", so many MP's using it now, so patronising.

‘Literally’ is another one as in “I got such a fright I literally felt my heart stop.” No, you didn’t!!

great post Gill

anja ??

Maybe everyone should be enrolled on 'Just a Minute' where you have to speak on a given subject without repetition, deviation or hesitation!!

For some irrational reason I get irked by the overuse of the word 'absolutely'.
It may be me but so many people in interviews preface a sentence with it.Once I have heard it several times I'm willing them to choose a different word.Also agree with a dislike for the word 'Like'.

What about basically then, its basically this and basically that, the most overused word I have ever heard! Basically it cheeses me off.

On Saturday I travelled for three hours on a train to Southampton seated behind a very self-possessed young woman who talked incessantly about herself in a cut glass accent, with ear-splitting clarity, but with 'like' interjected every five or six words ( I counted.) Clearly this has replaced OK yah.
" Like they asked me at the interview, like, had I got a hobby? A hobby, like! I have an extremely demanding job and like I am buying a house and like, do it up so I can make a profit. I don't have time, like, for a hobby."
Recognise yourself, Sophie? Like!!!

I find a lot of people can not string a sentence together without an auto que,even then they have a problem sometimes.

Linguistic fillers!

They actually have a very important role in speech and verbal discourse.

This is a nice starting place for an article, but most of the linguistics stuff is fairly comprehensible to laypeople if you are interesting in investigating this more.

www.nimdzi.com/exploring-linguistic-fillers/

“To err is human, to forgive divine.” Pope

My nephew drives me crazy with every 3rd word being "like". Do children pick up this bad habit at school? Admittedly it is a long time since my nephew was at school because he is in his early 30's now.

For every drama that is on, I now have subtitles.

Yes that's annoying too HumptyDumpty along with "at the end of the day" and
"I'm not being funny but...." grrrrr

Not as annoying to me as 'like' in every sentence!

No, you are not unreasonable in objecting to err and um in sentences, or to people mumbling.

I suppose Tony Blair may have caused some people to think, "Well if he can see err all the time, I can too", but I can clearly remember being corrected at school in 1964 or thereabouts for say "err"

If it isn’t ‘err’ it will be ‘um’. Drives me potty!