Words and Phrases I Hate, Continued

Welcome to this week’s edition of Monday Malice; let’s take aim at a few more overused or just plain dumb words and phrases. Here’s a link to the inaugural “Words and Phrases I Hate”, in case you didn’t get a chance to read it, or just need a refresher course in indignance.

• • It is what it is Well, what else would it be? Should we also say “it isn’t what it isn’t”?
  • Dialed in I’d like to find the person who first coined this and imprison them. Every time I hear this, I imagine someone “dialing in” and listening to hold music or, worse, actually dialing in on – what? Did rotary dial phones make a comeback?
  • Can’t Stop Won’t Stop Which is it? And why am I supposed to care?
  • So much this! On top of the fact that it just sounds dumb, there are critical parts of speech missing from this expression.
  • Loop In any phrase! Includes “looped in,” “close the loop”. My irritation with “loop” goes back decades, to when my daughter was in first grade and her homework instructions were to “loop” the correct answer. “What happened to circle?” I asked the teacher. “Oh, we don’t use that anymore. Not everyone understands what a circle is.” Oh, but they understand loop?
  • What’s done is done This is just ridiculous; it’s the irritating cousin of “it is what it is.” But my favorite characterization of this comes from The Untastic Mr. Fitz (follow him on Twitter @UnFitz; he’s hilarious), who calls this phrase “a master of both the obvious and the redundant.” Exactly.⧉

What about you? Any words and phrases you’d like to take aim at or, to paraphrase Nonprofit AF, “take a crowbar to”? Let me know in the comments!