The ten most annoying phrase in the English language have been revealed – at lest according to an admittedly “unscientific” survey by Countdown star Susie Dent.
The wordsmith and resident of Dictionary Corner polled her 1.1million Twitter followers on what they thought should be “banished from the dictionary” – as she suggested “it is what it is”, “going forward”, “with all due respect” and “aw bless” were in the running.
The suggestions came thick and fast, including one from actor Hugh Bonneville:
As she revealed the top 10, Dent said antipathy to many of the phrases was long-standing.
She tweeted: “Happily, English is a democracy so it’s up to us.
“And many of these are old beefs: ‘like’ as a filler was first used in 1778.”
She told the BBC the first reference in the Oxford English Dictionary to the word “gonna” was in 1806.
The top 10 are:
1. Going forward
2. No disrespect, but…
3. ‘like’ as a filler
4. I wanted to reach out
5. I’m not gonna lie
6. Basically
7. Let’s go offline
8. ‘So’ at the start of a sentence
9. The ‘optics’ of something
10. My bad