John Sturgill relates:

I find it really insipid when hair salons use a word play based on the word “shear”

• Shear Fantasy
• Shear and Shear alike
• Shearly gorgeous
• Shear Illusions

Normally I wouldn’t post non-media expressions that annoy people, but this goes out to any headline writers hoping to be clever with the next story about hair styles they have to handle: if it’s lame on a shop window, it’ll be lame in your publication.

Heidi attests:

My biggest peeve: I get really annoyed when journalists use “(pop. 200)” (or 29, or 400, or whatever) to underscore a town’s smallness. It’s overused like crazy, and vaguely condescending.

Bruce, who guards his last name zealously, suggests:

The phrase “jumped the shark” has just about jumped the shark by now, I think.

Joaquin Vargas avers,

I’ve hated this over-used phrase since I was editor of my high school paper:

• “All That Jazz.”

This is used in headlines for articles that have anything remotely to do with jazz, as in “Sacramento festival has All That Jazz,” or “Local Students Play All That Jazz.” I want to punch something whenever its used in this way.

Jeremy Egner despises:

“Hearts and minds”
Any lazy use of a noun as a verb. (“Journal” is the most grating. I
blame Oprah for this one, though I’m not sure she’s responsible.)

In music criticism:

• “Get (his/her/their/your) _____ on” (ironic appropriations of hip-hop jargon make me want to bust a cap in hack critics)
• “Kick out the jams“
• “Party like its (year reflecting a specific musical era)” (e.g., a retro disco band “parties like it’s 1979.” a tired rip-off of Prince’s “1999”)

and, finally:
“decidedly mixed reviews“

Nonchalant Jen requests:

Please banish “low carb.” I am sick of seeing it on every food item and restaurant menu. I am not on the Atkins diet, the Zone diet or any other miserable diet for that matter, so I don’t want to be looked at like some social pariah for eating a carrot or a piece of bread!

And are people so lazy that they cannot say “ohydrate”?

I’ll never give up my “carbs” or my “ohydrates.”

James La Croix advises:

As a movie reviewer for a local weekly, I religiously avoid the following:

No comedy is ever “a non-stop laugh riot,” or “side-splitting.”

No thriller renders me “white knuckled,” puts me “on the edge of my seat,” is “spine-tingling,” or a “non-stop thrill ride.”

Even if it did, in print no melodrama “made me laugh and made me cry.”

And I never metaphorically use some meaningless verb to describe an actor’s performance (e.g. “Halle Berry soars…”).

From Linda Demaree:

I am sick of any phrases using the word “closure“, i.e.,
“they need closure”, “they finally have closure”,
etc, etc.

Another fun one is “infrastructure“, which seems
to be the popular byword today. The only problem with it is that
everyone is using it, and using it and using it, ad nauseam- and
largely incorrectly.

I am not a member of the media in any way, however, I felt the need
to add a couple of my “pet peeve” phrases to your list of expressions
which should be banned for life!I hope that someone from the media will think to add these to the list, because quite frankly, when I hear them used or see them in print, I have a tendency to shut out the rest.

Thanks for letting me vent.
Signed,
A Consumer Victim Who Has Finally Found Closure By Being Allowed to
Vent About The Sad Media Infrastructure Which Allows Such Expressions
To Be Used To Excess!