It bugs me when people say “the thing is is that” (if you listen for it, you’ll start hearing it… or maybe that’s something that people only do in my area.) (“What the thing is is that…” is fine. But “the thing is is that…” bugs me.)
Also, “just because <blank> doesn’t mean <blank>.” That sentence structure invites one to take “just because <blank>” as a noun phrase which my brain really doesn’t want to do. Just doesn’t seem right. But that sentence structure is very common.
And I’m not saying there’s anything objectively wrong with either of these. Language is weird and complex and beautiful. It’s just fascinating that some commonly-used linguistic constructions just hit some people wrong sometimes.
Edit: I thought of another one. “As best as I can.” “The best I can” is fine, “as well as I can” is good, and “as best I can” is even fine. But “as best as” hurts.
For a period of time on spezsite, people loved posting photos using the title “Just a (whatever the thing in the photo was)”.
I don’t know why, but that convention of using “just a…” started to get under my skin after a while. The fad kind of faded away, though you still see it occasionally.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with titling a post in that manner. But over time, it felt like nonstop humblebragging.
I’m probably making zero sense. Pet peeves can be weird like that.
There are a lot of phrases from reddit that annoy me due to overuse. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” and “fuck around and find out” both annoy the absolute piss right out of me now.