5 Phrases Nerds Should Really Stop Using
These are the social cripples, the sniveling masturbators. Rejected (some would say rightly so) by their schoolyard peers, they have sought refuge amongst the similarly-damaged youths who make up the online collective. Here, they are given the opportunity to climb a reverse social ladder, one in which the individual is not rewarded for attractiveness, physical prowess, cleverness, or the ability to abstain from using racial slurs, but rather by Time Spent Grinding, Posts Per Hour, and (most relevant to this article) The Ability to Deliberately Mimic The Deliriously Annoying & Repetitive Patterns of Speech Favored By One's Online Peers. Which is to say: There are far too many internet nerds perpetuating rock-stupid verbal memes.
Below are a few common nerdly phrases which--when used--cause me to become unreasonably upset.
1. Good Sir/Kind Sir
If it isn't there already, "Kind Sir" is destined to become a played-out and meaningless aside, like "Thanks a lot", "Have a nice day", and "I love you." So cut it out! As I always say: Verily, a trifling tenpenny fellow is fit to mind & mingle with higgledy-piggledy mice at a cross-roads hullabaloo.
Examples of Acceptable Usage
[2nd chorus:]- Irving Berlin, Thank You Kind Sir Said She
"Thank you, kind sir," said she
"Welcome, sweet Miss," said he
"May I not escort you home?
I would hate to go alone"
STARRED is the blackness of the sky;- Aleister Crowley, The High History of Good Sir Palamedes
Wide is the sweep of the cold plain
Where good Sir Palamede doth lie,
Keen on the Beast-slot once again.
All day he rode; all night he lay
With eyes wide open to the stars,
Seeking in many a secret way
The key to unlock his prison bars.
Examples of Unacceptable Usage
Wow, funnebone. You nailed me down pretty well there. You should try it, as Ryan George can happily report, it works quite well. Lizzie55, as well. No more ads. You literally had me LOLing, you have such wit! I will not attempt to answer that retort at this time. I’m not sure I could… Well done, kind sir! Carry on!
- Turnems, Funny or Die Forums
Please, kind sir, will you give me the action replay code for the pokémon Rayquaza Sincerely, Confused Gamer.?
Answer
4000000b 00000000 dfcff000 193c4f00 00000000 00000000 fcff0000 d8000000 then go to a poke mart and press l+r and talk to the man in green I hope this will help
- Wikianswers Post
2. "_____ does not a ____ make"
Nowhere
is this phrase more overused than by people who write about
videogames (journalists, forum users, commenters, etc). Seriously, it's
absolutely insane. Are all these people just ripping each other off, or
is this evidence of some diabolical plot undertaken by game developers
to pointlessly drill the same tired-ass cliche into every gamer's head?
No one can say for sure. All I know is, it's become ridiculous and has
to stop.I'm sure right about now some of you are saying, "You are dumb. I've hardly seen anybody using this phrase and I read about videogames all the time. Stop making up lies. Also your website looks like crap and is garbage."
And those are just the ones I found in about a minute. If I took more time I could fill dozens of pages with this crap. Not that it's even a huge deal, but it just makes me cringe every time I see it. So if you game [aspiring] game journalists out there are even remotely concerned with originality, standing out among your peers, or "not sounding like a finger-wagging leprechaun reciting an amusing limerick", you might consider coming up with something a bit more clever than "good graphics do not a good game make."
Examples of Acceptable Usage
Again, I would not fault a leprechaun (or possibly a goblin) for cackling something like this to anyone who may have stumbled upon it's lair. It should be noted, however, that after using this phrase one should always titter something along the lines of, "Well fiddle-de-dee!" and execute a gleeful mid-air heel-click.Examples of Unacceptable Usage
Series like Indy aren't truly trilogies. They are three standalone films. Simply having three films in a "universe" does not a trilogy make. They are just a film with sequels. What happens when the fourth installment of Die Hard comes out this year and Indy 4 arrives next May? All of sudden they aren't trilogies.
- Rogue, DVDFile forums
You're the one who blew it on F~A~G, not the admins, not the other posters. It was all YOU. Deal with it. Get over it. Learn from your huge mistake and apologize for abusing the flower feature. Perhaps they'll let you back. I suspect not though, because I've no doubt you probably did other things to break the rules. One negative flower does not a banning make.
- DabbaDibba, Pissed Consumer Forums
3. Whilst
Some of
you might not even know the difference between "While" and
"Whilst", so let me explain:"While" is a conjunction whose primary meaning is "during the time that". "Whilst" is a more formal word which means "I would like you to make fun of me" or "You may disregard the rest of the words in this sentence because I am an unfunny ass."
So as you can see it would probably be in you nerds' best interest to stop saying "Whilst" entirely. Of course there are exceptions. If you are any sort of author writing a novel or poem before 1937, you have my permission to use the word, and those who hail from England and Australia are also exempt from this ruling since the word is far more common there (although some of you are still pushing it). But anyone else: Back off.
Examples of Acceptable Usage
Prose literature gives us Malory's Morte d'Arthur, in which are presented many ghastly situations taken from early ballad sources whilst other and cruder specimens were doubtless set forth in the cheap and sensational "chapbooks" vulgarly hawked about and devoured by the ignorant.
- H.P. Lovecraft
Examples of Unacceptable Usage
Before I begin, I must announce that my head is quite full of many things at the moment, and being exceptionally busy at work gives me not much time to post much these days. Why even now, I have a good deal to do, however, whilst I sit down and recover a bit, I'll post what I can to get things rolling.
- Demogorgon101, NYC LARP forums.
Does is matter if you drink alcohol whilst doing PE?
A few times while doing PE I have a glass of beer, I noticed while doing this I can keep an erection better. I guess I'm doing these exercises correctly because after a few reps I get a bulging vein, and I can feel the blood move.
How about masturbation? I know it's okay once a day, how about if you're doing it two or three times a day? Is that too much? This may be a reason why I go flaccid very quickly while jelqing.
- Zendo2, Penis Enlargement Gym
4. Indeed
Have you
ever told one of your friends a fascinating little-known fact
(one which they could not possibly have been aware of) and they
responded by smirking, nodding sagely, and saying "indeed." (possibly
while stroking their greasy molester 'stache with one chubby finger)?
If so, how did you
resist the urge to crack open their skulls in with a ball peen hammer?
Because I'm finding it more and more difficult to resist these urges as
time goes on. Not to imply that any of my friends would behave in such
a pretentious and asinine way (I have the monopoly on that, I guess),
but I have known people who did this all the time.So here's a notice to all you "indeed" people: You aren't fooling anybody with your half-assed pseudointellectual posturing. We all know you only read Yu-Gi-Oh fanfiction and Dragonlance novels so why don't you climb down off Shadowfax there and start talking like a regular person.
Examples of Acceptable Usage
THOU art indeed just, Lord, if I contend- English Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
- Me, Here
So in conclusion, you should only be using the word "indeed" if you are: A. English Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins Addressing God in a Poem or B. Just Some Idiot Who is Fooling Around. In either case, you should be comfortable coming off sounding like a cackling old Englishman from the 1800s with a brain half rotted out from syphilis (which, consequently, I am).
Examples of Unacceptable Usage
In the halls of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, the impossible has taken place. A grudge-target walks unassailed from the sacred place. The battles of the Nemesis Crown first saw the alliance of Dawi and the monstrous Ogres, and it was a fruitful one indeed.
- Fanfiction posted on "Dakka Dakka" Warhammer forums
Re: Pooping and Farting...
Thanks for citing that you got your idea from my forum, I've already come across a forum VERY similar to mine and I was nowhere to be found in it- no good, weak sauce indeed. I don't want my booty to be kissed, but would it hurt to give props to the person who inspired your idea?
- Jen Jen, CollegeNet Forums
5. Win/Fail/Epic Win/Epic Fail
NOTICE:
If you use [or have ever used] these or similar phrases unironically,
you've got about a 99.99% chance of being an
astonishingly unlikable idiot with a crippled sense of humor. The
reason I provide for the extra 0.01% is to account for all of the
perfectly lovely mentally handicapped folks, small foreign children,
and stroke victims who may unwittingly parrot one of these phrases upon
overhearing one some wretched, fish-stinking, neckbearded, "hardcore
gamer" muttering it while he fantasizes about committing childrape
while staring with bleary, half-closed eyes at a semen-encrusted copy
of Maxim while the latest episode of Dr. Who drones on somewhere the
background.Examples of "Acceptable" Usage
The only conceivable reason I can see for using any of these terms is if you were hoping to join in with all the other lazy, talentless, bandwagon-jumping vultures who've created any of the SIXTEEN BILLION "Fail Blogs" which have spread across the internet like STDs through a small Christian highschool. These sites make thousands in ad revenue every day by serving up exactly what the barely literate lowest-common-denominator internet user currently requests: An endless parade of vaguely humorous images with a single line of large-block text overlayed upon them.And so, as I cannot begrudge a stupid person the right to make an honest living by exploiting other stupid people, I must reluctantly deem the "fail blog" practice to be acceptable. And anyway, there are FAR MORE OFFENSIVE EXAMPLES of stupid people who've become undeservedly rich and successful by making something idiotic for idiots.
As for me, I'm content to stay a somewhat smart person making a reasonably stupid website for the 0.00001% of the population who chooses not to ignore it.
Examples of Unacceptable Usage
I tried looking for examples by typing "epic fail forum" into google, but looking through even a few of the results made me so intensely sad at the hopeless stupidity of such a large portion of the human race that I began to weep wholeheartedly and sincerely and continued weeping until the eventually the room had filled up with tears and became afraid so I froze some of the tears to try to make a tearboat for myself but it quickly melted and then sunk down and down and down into the warm darkness and took a deep deep breath and felt warm and comfort and goodness flowing into my lungs and heart and fell fast asleep.So it is with this message that I bid you farewell: O cruel and stupid world! Ye hast done wrongly to me, and lo! I hath responded in kind by embracing the liquid death of a sincere and godly and honest man. My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
"Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing?
Hop along, my little friends, up the Withywindle!"
Hop along, my little friends, up the Withywindle!"
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