is the one I don't like. It's the Internet equivalent of sucking on a pipe - a pause to suggest that you are thinking this one through before commenting , unlike all those others who are saying the first thing that comes into their heads.

The shame.

and blogosphere must be stopped.

Not to mention all those acronyms: LOL, ROFL, etc.

And as for emoticons. They must be killed.

But I also use it in life. I use it in life because I don't smoke a pipe and it would be physically impossible for me not to say "um" "ah" and "hmmm" anyway, and I use it online because I do my best to type like I speak.

Not always possible I know but I try. At least I don't use "happy face."

"Angry face"

And I agree, "just sayin'" and "Is it just me" has me thinking "bigot" or "moron" an awful lot.

And yes! Acronyms! Not fucking lol in the slightest.

I find them as annoying as I do the recent obsession a section of the population have with correcting how other people speak/write. These phrases may grate but they mostly don't impinge on meaning. They merely point out the limits of written language in portraying underlying meaning and tone especially in UK where public sarcasm,irony and under statement are the norm. Not sure we all could cope with people saying what they meant with no subtext etc (would be a bit dull too).

UR A GAY INNIT? LOL
;-)

it just me, or has this phrase come into use more now that you can instantly reply beneath a column and have a debate about it online, as opposed to being bothered enough to write a letter and post it to a newspaper who won't print it?

The others don't really bother me. What does irk me is "I'm only being honest", a la Cowell.

Yes, you are expressing an opinion that you honestly hold but generally the speaker of those dreaded words is actually being rude.

Honesty does not necessarily = rudeness.

Bluntness and tactlessness do not necessarily = honesty.

I think a lot of the above examples are just stock phrases that can be shoved into most sentences. Like 'err', or 'umm', but with their trousers tucked into their socks. It's just glibness on the part of writers who are writing for, as Elvis Costello/Frank Zappa/Whoever else said, people who can't read.

Such phrses entertain the easily pleased.

I get more annoyed about people who say 'myself', when they should say 'me', but they think 'me' is juvenile. So, what would be worse for me would be - "Is it just myself?". And I imagine it's being used by some semi literate half wit. Not that I am a paragon of the English language. Who'd claim to be that?

What we are not used to is being able to witness so much of the written language now available on public forums via the wonders of t'interweb. If Facebook were available twenty, thirty, forty or fifty years ago, would the language used therein by the majority have been ultra-correct? I doubt it.

The World moves on. Move with it and feel lucky that you are now able to be a part of so much of it.

(See what I did there?)

Twunts that invent portmanteau words like webinar.

Aaaarghhhh

I love Twitter.

And I love inanity.

The hydroponic gro-light shop in Edinburgh. Sunshine on Leaf. It's on Leith Walk. Or it always was.

In the mag you blame it on Cartman. Here you blame it on Mr Mackey. I would have blamed it on Mr (sometimes Mrs) Garrison. Who IS to blame?

and when you write you just choose the most appropriate tools for the job. The real problem with most supposedly annoying or inane expressions is their overuse to the point of meaninglessness.
(Here there is a parallel with the 80s music thread where posters were saying no records should ever feature the LINN 69-Xj Shitbebox, rather than why did every record made from 82-88 have to have the Shitebox all over it?)
I have seen "Is it just me?" used with brilliant effect on this very site. Once.
And I can imagine Mmmmkay working in precisely the right place. The problem is people directly substituting Mmmmkay for okay so that it becomes first a blunt instrument and then an annoying tic.
(Incidentally: where did that now perfectly acceptable piece of gibberish "Okay" come from?)
About 15 years ago someone stood up in the House Of Commons and referred to new measures as "swingeing cuts". The adjective was so unusual they had an item on the news that evening explaining what the word meant and speculating on where it might have been for the last 100 years. Before you could say "lazy jounalistic cliché" every reduction of over more than 1% was being described thus.
So all severe cuts are "swingeing", while the only thing that is ever swingeing is a cut.
The expression is now common in Irish tabloid newspapers, normally home to the down-to-earth vocabulary of the ordinary working man. (We used to be so proud of our Hiberno-English variants; here "savage cuts" would be the Irish expression).
The fact is that these new expressions and the online/text abbreviations do put new tools in our box and historically, it's the bad guys who -newspeak style - want to limit acceptable vocabulary. To put it another way

"extermination" is almost always a bad idea.

As Lenny says above, it's all part of the inexorable development of language. That said, there are always phrases that become inexplicably ubiquitous, to the extent that they cause many of us a grimace when we hear them. Then we have to put up with it, and even start looking/listening out for it, so we can be annoyed again. I do it myself. What was I thinking of??

As far as "Is it just me...?" (or a variant) is concerned, I'm fairly sure that was the title of a "book" "written" by that odious little worm Richard Hammond; it made me despise both him and the phrase just a little bit more.

about the words they use in these instances rather than what they seem to denote as stated in the OP. It's the written equivalent of "I'm sorry but..." and then stating your argument. You put a case forward, stand by it. Don't qualify the potential upset by apologising in advance.
Personally I steer clear of exclamation marks, emoticons and lols as a way of softening the impact of what I am trying to write, I just make sure the words count and if they are taken the wrong way then so be it.

I didn't get where I am today doing that so down with this sort of thing.

True dat

When I hear this, I visualise Shaggy from Scooby Doo quaking and chewing on his fingernails. This takes the sting out of most tragedies.

You could be in an indepth discussion with someone, having eloquently explained your point, when the say
"BUT", whatabout........

Using the word BUT, to open a sentence is effectivley saying,(IMHO) "I hear what you are saying, & I totally choose to ignore it while I carry on trying to get you to agree to my point".

I may not have explained that very well, so next time you are in a heated debate, & someone comes back with "BUT".....

Think of what I have just said, & it will become apparent.

I promise you BUT.... means, I am going to completely disregard what you have just said, because your view is irrelevant.

That really grips my shit.

I have reread this, & I know what I wanted to say, but havent really put it over very well.

Sorry

I've only heard this in the last few months (another US import?), but I hate it already. And I don't know what it actually means.

I hate it even more. Thanks Fraser.

wondering if this is a new trend in The Word, republishing an article as a blog in order to stimulate debate? I enjoyed Andrew's article (the OP) when I read it in the mag, thought that I broadly agreed with him but didn't see any need for posting anything here about it as we've already had a few discussions on slang, language, grammar etc. recently.
Surely if the Massive want to debate an article (for some reason squirrels and Andrew Collins come to mind) we will, without artificial pump-priming?

Just sayin'!

In speech, a lot of people I know use the word 'fuck' as a sort of all-purpose verb/punctuation mark/adjective, to be used at least twice in every utterance "The fucking fuckers fucking fucked. Fuck'

a lot of the internet neologisms seem to be used in the same way, especially in the thicky papers comments boards. Their not relevant or meaningful, it's just that the posters seem to think that's what your supposed to do in an internet post, use some of the acronyms to prove your part of some sort of light-hearted, please don't think I'm being a smartarse by actually having an opinion clique. There's always a post on The Sun boards sying something like ':) :) Well even if her dad did make her preggers she shdnt hav an abortion cos it IMORAL lol.

a lot

God knows I spend most of my adult life ranting about this stuff: usually on this site. And what it nearly always boils down to is this: language is changing. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse; but that is what language does. No, that is what language IS. Basically, some of us find that some new terms turn our stomachs, but there's no real logic to it (my favourite 21st century word these days is 'meh'); and there is largely nothing that we can do about it. I said the other day that I wish we could lose the word 'awesome'. But that's quite clearly not going to happen. Nor are people going to drop 'just sayin'' or 'mmmkay' because a couple of people want them to. We are, collectively, pissing in the wind.

Rave. Pick. I'm there.

says he's "not going gack on the gear". What's he moaning about? He was always bone dry whereas I had to wring out my shirt after the show every night...

that all metaphors are crap!.

Blah? Check.
Blah. Check.
Blah! Check.

Shudder.

... that have crossed over from the internet rather poetic. They roll very pleasingly off the tongue which I think is what accounts for their overuse.

I'm fond of the grammatically incorrect phrase: "(name of person) doesn't afraid of anything!" which is usually applied to some puffed-up braggart, making them sound like the marginalised kid in the school playground who makes unlikely boasts of his black belt in karate/ownership of a Playstation 4/membership in the junior CIA, but who can't even speak properly.

I first heard it applied to the narcissist arsehole - Tucker Max and thought that it aptly summed up his character in a way that the phrase "Tucker Max isn't afraid of anything" wouldn't have. Just by changing the syntax you go beyond a superficial description of a person and shed light on their psyche, all in a few words. It's genius.

Some internetisms get a bit annoying, especially where they are overused and become new clichés. But I don't get too worked about it. Personally I get a bit self conscious about using them, some rather make me cringe, like emoticons and this: *rolls eyes*. Yet I can see they have their uses in small doses, after all they evolve out of the need to communicate. It's a new language for a new context, like texting. Some see that as reason for concern about language being abused. I don't agree. Context is all - it's to do with adapting for a purpose. This isn't going to lead to this approach entering speech or more formal writing.

In fact, much of what Andrew Harrison is objecting to I don't see as coming from the internet especially. A lot of it is from American culture - TV and film. They get everywhere. We've had this kind of thing for a long time, only twenty or thirty years ago there was a different set of expressions which have now been replaced by new ones. What the internet does is increase the exposure of everything to a huge extent - so that we get sick of it all so much faster, sick of all that is in vogue, topical and done to death as it's repeated ad nauseum.

I'm just off to the Chemist. "Come with?"

I despise that saying.

It makes me want to Hurlll

trans: 'I agree with you but shut up and listen to me'
Not a fan of 'bless' either or 'he/she's not a happy bunny'. Don't know where they all came from.

and no offense...

I've just started a tweet with "is it just me or..." (it was a comment on a well known professor tweeting in text speak) - if all the followers I have from the Massive suddenly disappear over the next few days then I'll know my attempt at irony has failed