Ask LLOG: Annoying words
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This question arrived recently by email:
A topic I wonder about: "annoying" words, and the cause of their annoyingness, and whether many people find the same particular words annoying, or if there's a long tail of very few or just one person who finds them annoying.
The broad category is "workplace jargon", but not in the "normal sense" of that ("brown bag lunch", "team player", etc. etc.)
Examples:
– I find the word "remit" (as in: what one is supposed to DO as a job function deliverable) quite, quite irritating. I don't know why. It sounds slightly stodgy, but I like other forms of stodginess.
– I find the word "mandate" equally annoying, when used in the same sense: that which one's job description requires them to do. It means the same thing! Is it because it seems to be a Britishism, while I speak American?
Is it that I dislike the things required of one's job? I really don't think that's it, but maybe my individual experiences with interactions happening upon these "remit" and "mandate" usages are the simple reason for the negative association?
Is there another reason beyond personal priors that I'd find "remit" and "mandate" out of place and annoying in the modern American workplace? Is there a category of words like this? It's more than a simple pet peeve, I think.
I did try web search and LLMing. Consulting an LLM, I find it's not "corporate BS", "pretension, or "weasel words" that bother me. Seems it's some kind of "legalese encroachment" that feels odd. I seem to not mind examples of military or medical encroachments to the same level. It's the authority that's common to them, the LLM says. Yet I don't take too much issue with: caveat, deconflict, fiduciary, jurisdiction, redact, sanction, arbitrate.
I'm going to call them "lightning-pole words", for lack of a better phrase.
Some relevant prior posts:
"Whatever", 9/12/2009
"Moving low-hanging fruit forward at the end of the day", 9/26/2009
"Memetic dynamics of summative cliches", 9/26/2009
"'At the end of the day' not management-speak", 9/26/2009
"Annoying word poll results: Whatever!", 10/9/2009
(And Ben Zimmer's Word Routes column about it)
"Peevable words and phrases: journey", 5/18/2024
"Our journey journey", 7/10/2024
"Plummet's journey", 3/18/2025
As evidence that our journey journey isn't over yet, this ad has been cropping up all over the place for me recently:
I've been trying to sneak pilgrimage in as a replacement for journey, with no success so far.
And of course there's an analogous peevological journey about pronunciation:
MC said,
July 18, 2026 @ 1:01 pm
Both remit and mandate have implications of authority, whether granted or exercised. Lots of reasons to question the motives of the person using them. I'd find those words irritating in the workplace. Saying something is my mandate feels very different than saying something is my responsibility, more demanding and less helpful.
AntC said,
July 18, 2026 @ 5:55 pm
I lack that phrase. The BrEnglish seems to be Lightning rod; though I don't use that either. I say 'lightning conductor' for the strip of metal running from the top of (say) a church tower to ground, with usually some spiky arrangement of metal prongs at the top.
I think the word I'd use for your correspondent's complaints is 'peevery'. I can assure them the bulk of corporatespeak is Americanisms imposed on the rest of the English-speaking world. Actually not only specific words, but also US meanings for words: I do not automatically regard colleagues (let alone clients) as 'friends' — some might become friends outside of work — yet when I worked for an NZ branch of a large US corporate, we were more-or-less expected to socialise. And then the bosses (who wanted to call themselves 'friends') started to appeal to 'loyalty' of 'friends' to exploit us for more hours without overtime.
Richard Hershberger said,
July 19, 2026 @ 5:12 am
@AntC: American here. It definitely is "lightning rod." Google ngrams supports this. "Lightning pole" is essentially unknown.
As for colleagues as "friends," this is not a general usage. We have the expression "work friend," but this is a subset of colleagues. A work friend is someone you chat with, perhaps have lunch with, or even go for after-work drinks with. The key to a work friendship is that the relationship is situational. Once one of you moves to a different job, the relationship will fade away. They are still part of your network in that you might use one another as resources in a job hunt, but you won't be spending time together, or at most a tiny fraction as much as while you were working together. A boss who wanted you to call them your "friend"? This would be very weird, and borderline creepy.
Richard Hershberger said,
July 19, 2026 @ 5:17 am
"Remit": According to Merriam Webster, this usage is British English. This is consistent with my experience, It is in my passive vocabulary. M-W's example sentence, "The BBC simply no longer sees producing Shakespeare as part of its remit as a public service television broadcaster" is perfectly understandable to me, but not a usage I would employ.
jin defang said,
July 19, 2026 @ 11:23 am
I have a long list of such words, including "perfect storm" and "existential threat." Then there are : swollen river, doomed airplane, leafy suburb, leafy neighborhood, close-knit family ties,. unforgiving terrain, [trees] standing lonely sentinel….
anon said,
July 19, 2026 @ 12:03 pm
It's mesmerizing that LLMs can catch up with regional dialects, gen Z and political buzzwords, but still fail to learn Amharic, Santali, Tamazight, all spoken by tens of millions of people.
David Marjanović said,
July 19, 2026 @ 1:54 pm
FIFY. :-)
It depends on 1) the size of the training material and 2) whether anyone bothers to train an LLM on that material.
And the Berber/Amazigh languages are a family about as old and diverse as Romance; you can't learn one and believe you've learned them all.
Chas Belov said,
July 19, 2026 @ 4:56 pm
I was initially disconcerted when restaurant or farmers market staff would address me as "friend" but have accepted simply replying in kind. This extends "friend" to mean someone who gives me their custom or someone who supplies me with wonderful food. But I don't initiate the use, so it only occurs in our exchange if they start it.
@David Marjanović
I'll consider that a challenge for my Infectious Multilingual playlists. I'm sure I have some such on my playlist already but gotta catch 'em all. At least all that have songs with a good beat streaming on YouTube. (Also gotta track down Santali; don't think I have that one. And noting Firefox thinks Santali is a typo, tsk.
AntC said,
July 19, 2026 @ 7:41 pm
But I don't initiate the use, so it only occurs in our exchange if they start it.
Does it not annoy you (to extend our topic to phrases) when they wish you "have a nice day" and it's already late evening as you walk out of the restaurant?
There seems to be a similar creeping faux-servility when I say 'thank you' for (say) bringing the food or settling the bill (cheque). I'm being only perfunctory/conventional: I acknowledge you've carried out the expected job effectively; but these days it's often met with "oh, that's alright" [**]. As if I'm thanking for going to some extraordinary lengths. (If they have, I'll be far more fulsome.)
How am I supposed to finish the exchange in a way that won't trigger some obsequious reply? Do customers these days merely grunt and walk out?
[**] At least we haven't yet in NZ got to "you're welcome".
ardj said,
July 20, 2026 @ 10:34 am
@AntC: If I recall the standard UK response was "My pleasure", which is fair enough even if it sounds slightly smarmy. I am not aware aware of this being an issue in French, though there are many other things to object to.
Chas Belov said,
July 21, 2026 @ 11:54 pm
I've gotten "Have a nice rest of your day." As for "Thank you," I've been getting "No problem" for years. Doesn't irk me, but as someone who was brought up on "You're welcome" it still sounds odd, especially in situations like bringing the check. (I do recall a modern generation denizen writing to Miss Manners complaining that responding "You're welcome" to a "Thank you" was rude.
Philip Taylor said,
July 26, 2026 @ 4:29 am
In all but the most casual contexts, I would tend to response "You are very welcome" or "You are most welcome" to a spoken "Thank you".